

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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DOLLY'S KETTLEDRUM 



/ 

BY NORA PERRY. 

With 

Other Stories for Girls 


“A 0&- 


// v 

! 

I v , 


BOSTON 

D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

32 FRANKLIN STREET 


Copyright, 1883. 

D. Lothrop & Company. 


CONTENTS 


i. 

Dolly’s Kettledrum ..... Nora Perry. ^ 

II. 

Noblesse Oblige Nora Perry. / 

III. 

Everybody Surprised but Addie . Margaret Eytinge. 

IV. 

The floral Procession . . Mrs. Louise T. Craigin. 

V. 

A vexed Question . Margaret Hammond Eckerson. 

VI. 

Polly’s Nest Egg 

VII. 

A little Texas Nurse Girl 

VIII. 

A Nantucket Story 

IX. 

Christy Ann 

X. 

Did Ethel see the Queen ? 

XI. 

Beely Cooley Hortensus . Mary Hartwell Catherwood. ^ 

XII. 

Chinese Decoration for Easter Eggs . S. K. B. . 

XIII. 

Mrs. Hungerford’s second Letter from Home M. H. 


. . Mary Densil. 

. M. T. Cushing. 
Mrs. Alfred Macey. 
Mary H. Catherwood. 
. Eliot McCormick. 


i 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


At Dolly’s Kettledrum . Mrs. Jessie Curtis Shepherd. 
Sorry little Kitty makes an Explanation 

Miss C. A. Northam. 

They wait to see Addie open the Basket 

Francis Miller. 

The Procession — “A pretty Sight It was” 

Miss L. B. Humphrey. 
Taking Tea .... Mrs. Jessie Curtis Shepherd. 
Martha Abby Judson surprises the Family 

Sol Eytinge, Jr. 

Under the live Oak J. H. Moser. 

“ Here’s my five Cents,” said Christy Ann 

J. W. Champney. 

Ethel ....... Mary A. Lathbury. 

Mary Mareea Maria: also Miss Hancock 

B. C. and I. H . . . . F. S. Church. 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS 
KETTLEDRUM. 



T the end of the great hall in Mrs. Portman’s 


house there was one large window with a 
deep window-seat, which was a favorite gathering-place 
for all the girls on that floor. Mrs. Portman, ten 
years before this story opens, had been a great 
leader of society — not fashionable society merely — 
and losing the fortune that had enabled her to take 
such a position, by one of the disastrous financial crises 
that ruined so many people, she had at once gone to 
work and established a private day and boarding school 
for young ladies, in her out-of-town mansion. So 
popular had this school become that some one who 
had vainly waited and tried to find a vacancy one 
autumn made this rather spiteful remark concerning 
it : “ One would think it was the Kingdom of 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


Heaven, there is such difficulty in getting in.” A 
dear little impulsive girl, one of the pupils and one 
of the heroines of my story that I’m about to tell, 
retorted upon this : 

“ And it is the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth,” 
which I think presents Mrs. Portman’s school in as 
favorable a light before my readers as many words 
of mine could do. So now I will return to that 
window in the great hall. It is the day before Christ- 
mas. Those of the pupils who have not gone home 
on account of the distance, or other reasons, are 
fluttering about here and there in high holiday 
humor and expectation. A group of these have 
wedged themselves into the big window-seat where 
they sit chattering like magpies. The centre of the 
group and the centre of attraction is a bright-eyed 
brunette. She has the sweetest face, the most 
lovable face in the world. She is the dear little girl 
who gave that happy retort about the Kingdom of 
Heaven. She is saying now as she sits there in the 
window-seat : 

“ I’ll tell you what you must do ; as my box has 
come to-day and yours hasn’t, you must come to my 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


room this evening and share my fun and goodies.” 
There are no disclaimers, no laggards with excuses 
to beg out of this charming prospect. The whole 
four girls who have received this invitation of dear 
Dolly Lincoln’s are only too happy to accept it. As 
they sit there in the afternoon sun, which is going 
down in full splendor, they look like five rosebuds. 
Dolly Lincoln with her red and brown brightness, is 
a rich Jacqueminot; Margie Gaines, with her golden 
hair and white skin, a Perle des Jardins; Milly 
Jarvis, with her dark bright hair and dusky skin, a 
bronzed Jean Ducher ; Katy Downes, a little fragrant 
tea rose bud all pale amber perfection, and Florry 
Wainright a lovely Noisette of pink and white. 

Suddenly all their gay chatter and light laughter 
goes out in a queer little silence, as down the half 
they see approaching a tall overgrown girl whose 
near-sighted eyes seem to be searching for some one. 
She comes nearer, quite close to them, indeed, before 
she appears to recognize them, then she stops ab- 
ruptly, a deep red color flushes into her face, and 
she says quickly: 

“I am trying to find Miss Weston. Mrs. Portman 


DOLLY S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


said she was at the end of this hall somewhere.” 

There was a moment of awkward silence, and then 
Dolly Lincoln spoke up hurriedly : 

“ She must be in number twenty-four, I think.” 

As the girl disappeared in number twenty-four, 
Dolly Lincoln burst out in subdued tones : 

“ I think we are horrid little prigs ! ” A moment 
more, and then vehemently, “I’m going to invite 
her to my party to-night ! ” 

“ Dolly ! ” cried the whole four of her companions 
in a horrified chorus. 

“I am — lam, so there ! ” 

“ A girl that could do such a thing as she did ! ” 

“Well, we don’t know anything; it’s after all 
‘ circumstantial evidence,’ as the newspapers say.” 

“ Well, I should think it was a pretty clear case. 
Julia Morris goes away and leaves her bag, or reti- 
cule, or something, with her, and inside of that bag 
is the algebra problem for exhibition. When she 
comes back the problem is missing out of the bag, 
and Miss Fanny Drayton who is the only rival in 
algebra that Julia had, of course comes in first and 
gets the credit — she would probably have come in 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


second but for that, as she usually did, for poor 
Julia coming back at the last moment has to make 
out a new one, which in her hurry can’t help being 
higgledy piggledy and full of little errors. Circum- 
stantial evidence ! ” winds up Florry Wainright with 
a final burst of scorn. 

Dolly Lincoln does not reply to this ; perhaps she 
is wisely silent, or perhaps she is overruled and 
regrets her declaration of a few moments ago. The 
four girls think the latter ; and the time goes on, the 
minutes slip by, the tea hour comes, and the four 
girls, Milly and Mary and Florry and Katy, have put 
on their prettiest frills and ribbons and gone in a 
little giggling body to Dolly Lincoln’s door. Dolly 
meets them with all her merry archness of cordiality. 
She is a little dramatist, is Dolly, and is fond of put- 
ting everything into that light; so she bends and 
bows and welcomes them with a gay travesty of 
reality. She calls Florry Wainright her dear duch- 
ess, and hopes she left the duke well; and Milly 
and Mary are the Princesses of Portmanshire, and 
little Katy Downes is the Countess of Kisses. It 
is not long before the whole company are clustered 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


together over the contents of the Christmas box. 
The box was so big that Dolly has separated the 
sweets, the candies and cookies and fruits from the 
rest and put them into a pretty basket which is 
passed about from guest to guest. 

“ What a pretty basket!” exclaimed Florry Wain- 
right enthusiastically; and she lifts it up from the 
table for inspection. 

‘‘Yes ; isn’t it? It was Julia Norris’s. She gave 
it to me when she went away.” 

From the basket they fell to discussing the con- 
tents. Such a tempting array of dainties. Bon bons 
fresh from Paris — new devices the like of which 
none of the girls had ever seen before. The most 
enchanting of these were sugar robin’s eggs. Inside 
of each was a little gold ring. There were six of 
them. 

“Just enough to go round and one left over, 
Dolly ! ” cried Milly ecstatically, as she cracked the 
thin sugar shell of the one bestowed upon herself. 

Dolly did not reply, but looked a little troubled, 
Milly thought. Perhaps after all Dolly was regret- 
ting her generosity in giving them all such treasures. 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


She managed somehow to convey this to Dolly. 
Dolly flung herself back upon the bed where she was 
sitting, in a little burst of laughter. 

“ What a goose you are, Milly. These bon bons 
are made to give away. Mamma chose them on 
purpose for me to give to my friends. They are 
Christmas favors.” 

“ Tell you what we can do,” here cried out little 
Katy Downes, waking up out of one of her dazy little 
dreams. “ Tell you what you can do,” and Katy 
struck her tiny hand upon her knee in the delight at 
her new idea; “you — we — can make a club and 
call it the Robin’s Ring Club ! ” 

Dolly jumped off the bed and clutched Katy in a 
wild embrace. 

“ Oh, you dear ! it’s just the thing. Hurrah for 
the Robin’s Ring Club ! Hurrah for the Countess 
of Kisses ! ” and Dolly showered the latter upon 
Katy until she screamed for mercy. 

Just here in the midst of all this commotion there 
came a rap upon the door, and Dolly flew back to 
her throne upon the bed, and then called out rather 
excitedly : “ Come in ! ” 


dolly’s CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 

The door opened and there appeared upon the 
threshold — Fanny Drayton. At the moment every 
one of the girl guests stared in amazement. How 
dared she intrude herself, they thought. The next 
moment their amazement took a different form, for 
Dolly from her seat upon the bed waved her hands 
invitingly, and said : “ Better late than never, Fanny. 
Come in and sit down. I was afraid that Jane 
hadn’t given you my note, you were so long coming.” 

The four pairs of eyes that had been staring at 
the girl in the doorway, now turned away from her 
and became intent upon something else. Milly 
Jarvis leaned against Margie Gaines, and Margie 
Gaines became absorbed in tasting a piece of can- 
died cocoanut, and Florry Wainright bent her head 
over the basket, while Katy Downes clasped her 
hands over a cookie in her lap, and looked as if 
she were going to sleep. 

A second or two Fanny paused on the threshold, 
then as Dolly kept urging her to come in, she slowly 
approached the bed and as slowly sank into the 
vacant chair near by. Dolly’s eyes flashed as she 
saw how all the girls ignored this unfortunate latest 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


comer, and her brave, generous, pitiful spirit rose 
up to meet the situation. With her gayest, brightest 
manner she introduced Fanny to the others as the 
Empress Eugenia, and sparkled off into so many 
funny jokes that despite their determination to be 
dignified and cool, first one girl and then another 
giggled over their candies and cake. 

But not one of them turned a glance upon 
Fanny, or vouchsafed a word to her. They fell to 
talking again with each other, but they paid not 
the slightest attention to the unfortunate Empress 
Eugenia. Dolly tried to make up for all this by 
quiet little courtesies and kindnesses. She passed 
her the basket of sweets again and again, and when 
Fanny helped herself timidly and sparingly, she 
heaped a plate for her with the cream of the dainties. 

But it was of no use, the near-sighted eyes filled 
and filled with tears, and the. tears ran over and fell 
upon the sweet things, till the sweet things turned 
salt and bitter, and the poor empress at last choked 
and then burst into a sob, and then jumping up flew 
from the room. 

Milly Jarvis stopped leaning against Margie Gaines 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


and sat bolt upright, and Margie Gaines dropped 
her piece of candied cocoanut as if it had been a 
hot coal, and Florry Wainwright dropped the basket 
and tipped over the table, plates, goodies and all, 
and Katy Downes lifted her hands all smeared with 
her crushed cookie and covered her face, while Dolly 
Lincoln began to cry as if her heart would break. 
Between her sobs she gasped : 

‘‘And it’s Christmas, and she’s alone — oh, oh, 
and no mother — and no father — to send her — 
thi-things, and we’re — mean — sel-selfish, ha-hateful 
— gir-girls, and wha-what’ll be-become of us some- 
sometime — spos’n — spos’n we — shou-should do — 
something bad — that we — were sorry for — for if she 
has done what — you think — she is sorry, and you’re 
not giving her a chance ! ” At this last word a general 
sob and wail sounded in the room ; there was a con- 
fused tangle of gold locks and dark locks upon the 
bed, a confused cry of “ Dolly, don’t ! ” and “ Dolly, I 
shouldn’t have thought,” which was interrupted by a 
voice from the floor. It was the voice of Florry 
Wainright. “ Girls, girls, look here ! ” She was sit- 
ting near the overturned table amid broken plates 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


and scattered dainties. The empty basket was in 
her lap. She had just taken a paper from the bottom 
of it which she was regarding intently. There was 
something in her voice which made every girl listen 
— something in her face which the next moment made 
every girl jump down off the bed and cluster round 
her on the floor. As they did so, Florry pushed the 
paper towards them, and said: “Girls, this is Julia 
Norris’s missing problem; it was at the bottom of 
this basket. What does it mean ? ” 

Dolly jumped to her feet, stood for a moment with 
her lips parted, her eyes dilated with some new 
thought, then she rushed from the room and tore 
down the hall. The next instant Miss Weston, one 
of the teachers, was astonished to see Dolly Lincoln 
with tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes, standing 
before her, to hear her ask : 

“ Miss Weston, was it a bag or a basket that 
Julia Norris left in charge of Fanny Drayton when 
she went to see her mother in New York ? ” 

“It was a basket — that pretty Fayal basket. 
Why do you ask ? ” 

Then Dolly told her story. Miss Weston was 


dolly’s CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


only a girl herself of eighteen, and she got quite as 
excited as Dolly as she listened to this story, and 
she took Dolly’s hand and ran with her down the 
great hall to where the little group of girls sat on the 
floor puzzling and pondering over the problem. 

u Yes, of course it’s the missing problem ! ” she 
exclaimed ; “ and you found it at the bottom of the 
basket. I asked Julia again and again if she had 
searched her basket thoroughly when she got it 
back, and she was so positive, as she always is. I 
ought to have looked myself. I ought to have re- 
membered that Julia is the most impatient girl and 
constantly mixing up and overlooking her things ! 
but she was so sure. Oh, dear! where’s Fanny?” 

“ I’ll fetch her,” and Dolly tore down the hall again 
on her happy errand. How r can I ever picture the 
scene that ensued ? How can I ever make you see 
Fanny, with her winking, blinking, near-sighted eyes 
looking and listening and gradually taking it all in — 
that the problem had been found where she had put 
it — that everybody was happy and sorry in a breath, 
and asking her pardon and trying to kiss her and 
make much of her. The crown of everything came. 


DOLLY’S CHRISTMAS KETTLEDRUM. 


when suddenly Dolly pounced upon the sixth robin’s 
egg, the one “ left over,” and made Fanny the sixth 
member of the Robin’s Ring club. And such a 
good time as they had afterwards. They sat up 
until half-past nine o’clock, and Miss Weston sat 
with them, and laughed and told stories as gayly as 
any of them, and at the end when one after another 
of the girls said they never, never had had such a 
good time in their lives before, Miss Weston declared 
that she certainly never had a better time ; whereupon, 
Dolly pulled off her Robin’s Egg ring and asked Miss 
Weston if she felt too big and too old to belong to 
their club ; and Miss Weston said she should be 
only too delighted to belong, but she didn’t want to 
rob Dolly of her ring; but Dolly wasn’t going to stop 
for such a trifle as that, she was sure she could get 
another one. So, “ on her very littlest finger,” Miss 
Weston put Dolly’s Robin’s Egg ring ; and there she 
wears it to this day, as sign and seal of her member- 
ship of the Robin’s Ring Club, and of that delightful 
evening when they were all so sorry and happy 
together, at Dolly’s Christmas Kettledrum. 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


LEN, I want to ask you a question — a straight- 



out question, as we used to say at Miss Tel- 
ler’s school when our curiosity was roused.” 

Glen laughed : “You may ask a dozen, Kitty.” 
“And you will answer them or not as you think fit? ” 
“ You would never ask a question I should not 
want to answer, Kittykins.” 

“ Oh dear, now you do put me on the very top 
shelf of my honor and delicacy, and all that sort of 
thing, but I’m going to ask the question all the 
same, though it’s downright curiosity that prompts it, 
nothing else. The question is just this : Why do you 
have that old French motto, Noblesse Oblige , appear 
in so many places in your house? I picked it out the 
other day in that pretty banner screen design you 
had painted, and I saw it painted in that scroll that 
hangs at the foot of your bed, and here it is now in 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


this dreadful old English text on this lovely mirror 
frame, and engraved inside that locket you wear.” 

Glen — her name is Glendower, an old family 
name which her father bestowed upon her for the 
very good reason that he was bound to have a child 
of his wear the time-honored appellation, and as he 
had no son to wear it, he could not see why it was 
not the prettiest name in the world for a girl, and for 
that matter neither can I — Glen, as her friend 
Kitty came to the conclusion of her question, looked 
up from her crewel work and laughed again. 

“O, Kitty,” she cried, “you are such a queer 
little conundrum of a girl! I thought when you 
began, you were going to ask about some very serious 
matter indeed ; and lo and behold it’s only about 
our old motto. See here !” and going to the book- 
case she took down a volume, turned the leaves, and 
presently handed it open to Kitty. 

And Kitty read of a certain gallant French officer 
in the time of Henry the Fourth, of France, who 
when honors and glories were showered upon him 
after a hard-fought battle where he had borne himself 
most gallantly, modestly disclaimed the sole honor 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


and credit, and pointed out a brother officer as more 
deserving than himself. Those were rough and roys- 
tering times when men did not give way to another 
easily, and he was questioned with much amazement 
for reason of his conduct. 

He promptly replied : “ I come of an honorable 
race who have never profited by unlawful gains.” 

When this answer was noised about, one of the 
peers of the realm was so struck with admiration that 
he exclaimed : “ He should be knighted for his nobility 
of conduct, and his motto should be Noblesse Oblige .” 

When a peer of the realm in those days spoke like 
this, speech was soon followed by action, and it was 
not long before the gallant officer bore the title of 
baron, and upon his shield, he had written the motto, 
Noblesse Oblige. 

When Kitty lifted her eyes from the page, Glen 
spoke up, answering the unspoken question of her 
eyes : “ That officer was an ancestor of ours, my dear, 
and when I first read this story about him, four 
years ago, though I was only thirteen years old, I 
was determined to keep that motto of his in sight to 
save me from doing mean things.” 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


“As if you could do mean things, Glen ! ” 

“ As if I couldn't l Oh, you don’t know me, Kitty- 
kins ; I’ve got some horrid faults.” 

“ As which ? ” asked Kitty, smiling up incredu- 
lously into beautiful Glen’s face, beautiful Glen 
whom she had never seen ruffled or moved out of 
that sweet serenity of hers. 

“ Ah, but I am not going to tell ; you must find out 
for yourself,” blushing and laughing, Glen answered; 
and Kitty laughed too. 

She didn’t believe much in Glen’s faults, her 
“horrid faults,” as that young lady had called them, 
and Glen herself was certainly not very much im- 
pressed by them as she talked about them there that 
bright day in her own cosey little sitting-room. 

Going home after lunch, Kitty, as she always did 
when she had spent any time with Glen, pondered 
admiringly and lovingly over her many attractions 
and virtues ; and on this occasion turned over again 
in her mind the question of the faults. 

“ Of course,” said sensible little Kitty to herself, 
“ Glen has faults, because everybody has faults ;^but 
I’m sure there is nothing mean or horrid about them. 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


She must be like that person that Goldsmith tells 
about, whose ‘ failings leaned to virtue’s side.’ ” 

While Kitty thus lovingly defends her idol in her 
thoughts, the idol herself, remembering Kitty’s admir- 
ing looks and words and what had called them 
forth, is thinking of the same subject — these very 
faults. “ I know what my faults are,” she said half- 
aloud as she thought. “ I know I am fond of admir- 
ation, and pretty clothes, and of having my own way. 
I know I am inclined to be indolent, and to put off 
everything I can that is not an absolute pleasure. But 
of one thing I am sure : I am not selfish nor stingy.” 

She said this last sentence with very decided 
emphasis. Perhaps it was her occupation that 
pointed the emphasis — she was folding up several 
partly worn dresses of her own, and was presently 
going to make them into a package to send away to 
her cousin, Josephine Emory, who was not favored 
like herself with a rich father. Every spring and 
autumn Glen made up these packages to send to 
Josephine, and whenever she did it her heart always 
glowed with a warm sense of kindliness, not only 
towards Josephine, but towards people generally. 
























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NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


“Joe will get this to-morrow afternoon if I express 
it to-day,” she thought, “ and how pleased she will 
be, and how pretty she will look when she has made 
the things over with those deft little fingers of hers.” 

What would Kitty Bell have thought, what would 
she have said, and what would Glen have thought 
and said, if they had been invisibly present at the 
Emorys the next afternoon at five o’clock ? At that 
very hour precisely, Josephine was looking over the 
package of dresses. She held up to the light a long 
polonaise of gray cashmere, with a very elaborate 
trimming of satin of the same shade. The skirt for 
this was quite as elaborately trimmed, and heavy 
with stiff facings and quillings. Josephine’s face did 
not look as pleased as Glen had fancied it. “ Mother,” 
she said at length, “ do you know I think it would be 
cheaper for me to buy my own dresses than to get 
these made over to fit me. Glen, you see, is a great 
deal larger than I.” 

“ But then you could never afford to get such ma- 
terial, my dear.” 

“ I know that, but this material is partly worn, and 
I must get new satin, if I can match it, to make fresh 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


bows, and I must pay Mrs. Wheeler quite as much 
as I would to make a new dress to make it over 
thoroughly, or else I must wear the skirt as it is with 
all that heavy lining and facing, and I can’t — I’m 
not strong like Glen ; I can’t carry all that weight.” 

“Of course not; but how about the others, Jose- 
phine?” asked her mother. Then Josephine held 
up and inspected two more elaborately trimmed 
gowns — one of mingled surah satin and foulard of 
peacock blue and fawn color, another in two shades 
of green. All of them were profusely trimmed, and 
heavy with the weight of crinoline, and other linings 
and facings. Both too long in the skirt and large in 
the waist and sleeves for delicate little Josephine, 
there would be a great deal of ripping and fitting and 
sewing before they would be wearable for her ; and 
all this would cost money. 

“ I suppose Glen thinks we do the altering our- 
selves,” presently said Mrs. Emory. 

“ Yes, I suppose she does; she has seen me do 
little things that were needed to my dresses when I 
have been visiting her. But how little people stop 
to think of other people’s ways and means — I mean 


NOBLFSSE OBLIOE. 


how little rich people do. Glen knows that I teach 
all day, and that you work all day about the house,” 
— as Josephine said this, she looked up at her 
mother, that dear, dear tired mother, who would 
never say she was tired ; and looking into the dear 
face, a spasm of emotion which came up from her 
girl’s heart, out of all the bitter sweet memories of 
their hard pinching times, quivered upon her lips. 
Then all at once a rush of tears came, and then a 
rush of words in such truth as people give utterance 
to when the hurt heart speaks : 

“ O, mother, mother, I know Glen means well — 
that she means to give me pleasure, and it gives her 
pleasure too ; but do you think that if I were in her 
place I should be so ignorant of those I wanted to 
help ? If I were Glen I should see that my gifts made 
it easier for those who received them, not harder.” 

“ My dear, I’m sure it’s very kind of her to think 
to send you these things.” 

“ Mother, I suppose all this sounds very ungrate- 
ful, but why should we be grateful for what we don’t 
ask for and don’t want, just because some one 
chooses to burden us out of their superabundance ? 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


Glen doesn’t want these things. She is very glad to 
give them to me; and she says to her mother — I 
have heard her — ‘Mamma, I shall give Joe my 
foulard and the gray cashmere — they have both 
strained at the seams — and I shall get me a white 
pongee and a new black silk to take their place.’ 
Mother, you know and I know what we should do if 
I were in Glen’s place, with eight hundred dollars a 
year, to spend as she pleases. If I were in Glen’s 
place and Glen in mine, I should not send her cast- 
off finery ; I should give her now and then a new gown, 
or the money to buy one, just such as she wanted.” 

“Your uncle William is very kind on Christmas, 
you must remember, Joe dear.” 

“Yes, mother, but I’m talking of Glen; and the 
sting of it is that Glen is so pleased with herself for 
her goodness to ‘poor Joe,’ mother.” 

“ My dear, we have learned many things by being 
poor that we should never have known if we had 
been rich, and perhaps if we had not learned so much 
of the wants and ways of poor people, if we had 
been rich always, we might have been no wiser in 
our actions than your cousin Glen.” 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


“ Perhaps so,” answered Josephine, sighing ; but 
even as she made this admission she thought to 
herself it was scarcely possible, so vivid was her 
realization of the wants and ways of those about her. 

Kitty Bell was in a great state of delight, for she 
had got her heart’s desire in having her beautiful 
Glen for a guest at Bellefontaine, the summer resi- 
dence of the Bell family. Glen was a charming 
guest ; sweet tempered, and easily pleased, as all 
sweet tempered people are generally, she fitted in to 
all the little plans and pursuits with a ready alacrity 
that made her delightful. As she had said of herself, 
she was fond of having her own way; but in a bright 
lively house like the Bells, it was not difficult to 
make her ways like theirs. There were also plenty 
of lively neighbors, and picnics, lawn tennis parties, 
boating parties, and all the many summer excursions 
occupied the days from morning until night. Glen 
had noticed, however, that on Saturday of every 
week Kitty always excused herself from any of the 
pleasure plans, and spent the time in her mother’s 
sewing-room. In the beginning of the visit she had 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


said to Glen, “ Saturdays I always spend with 
mamma in sewing, and you can join me in the sewing 
room or not, just as you choose.” But Glen did not 
like to sew, so she never accepted this invitation 
more fully than to put her head in at the doorway 
now and then, or look in at the low window to say a 
word to Kitty. “ Dear, good little thing ! ” she used 
to think of Kitty rather patronizingly, “she will never 
do any great thing, never take a high place, or see 
beyond her daily routine of the usual cut-and-dried 
duties and charities, but I like her immensely, and 
there must be somebody to do the small things of 
life.” While she said all this to herself, beautiful Glen 
was thinking of a certain voluntary performance of 
hers once a fortnight when she was in town, at 
the rooms of the Christian Association for poor boys. 
Glen had a lovely voice, and when the young presi- 
dent of the association asked her if she would sing 
one evening for his boys, Glen consented with no 
idea of repeating it; but she found it so pleasant, 
with not only the appreciation of the boys, but with 
the praise of the president and two or three of his 
friends who were present, that she volunteered to sing 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


again ; and so the singing had kept on from fortnight 
to fortnight, until it had got to be a regular thing, 
and Glen found as the winter went on that her audi- 
ence also increased, and that she was quite a heroine 
— a heroine who was greatly commended for her 
services to these poor children. Thinking of all 
this, and of Kitty and her small things, Glen one 
Saturday morning sauntered into the sewing-room, 
and found her friend busily at work upon a little 
gown, and with a pile of other little gowns before her. 

“ Charity work, eh, Kitty dear ! My child, why 
don’t you let somebody else do it who would be 
glad of the employment ? I always do that way, 
and so do a double charity service, you see.” 

“ But it isn’t charity work, Glen. I’ll tell you. 
Mamma has a friend who has had great reverses. 
We should be very glad to give her money, but she 
very naturally wouldn’t like that, and so mamma 
and I hit upon this way to help her. She has sev- 
eral children and I persuaded her to let me em- 
ploy some of my leisure time in making garments 
for them. Mamma told her that she should be 
very glad to have me learn how to cut and fit 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


and make clothing for my own sake, which is 
quite true, and I am very, very glad to help dear 
auntie May, as I have always called her.” 

“ But what is this — what are you doing with this 
pretty black silk of yours ? ” queried Glen. 

“ Oh ! that I am fitting over a little and re-trim- 
ming for Jessie, the eldest daughter, who is near 
my age, but slighter and smaller.” 

‘‘But why don’t you send it as it is, and let her 
do it herself ? ” 

“ Because Jessie is nursery governess to the 
younger children, and besides, assists her mother 
in the chamber work, so she hasn’t any time, un- 
less she takes the time that she ought to rest to 
do it ; and if she hired it done, it would hardly 
be the real help I want it to be, would it ? ” 

Glen could not answer. Her heart gave a great 
throb and a mist seemed to obscure her vision for 
a moment, for all at once Kitty’s ways that she 
had thought such small ways, shone before her in 
contrast to her own. All at once she saw how she 
had deceived herself in her idea of her own supe- 
riority. While she had been priding herself upon 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


her good works, her generosity, none of which 
brought her trouble or pains, but only gratified 
her ambition and contributed to her pleasure, here 
was this little Kitty who loved the sunshine and 
the flowers, whom they had always called at school, 
“ lazy little Kitty,” voluntarily giving up her time, 
voluntarily giving up the sunshine and the flowers, 
and the gay doings, whatever they might be, that 
came on Saturday, that she might do this unselfish 
and noble thing ; while she, Glendower Hastings, 
who had set before herself that old motto of 
Noblesse Oblige, to keep from doing the mean or the 
selfish act, she — as Glen reached this climax in all 
the sudden rush of thought, her impetuous nature 
burst forth in a flood of tears. 

“ O Glen, Glen ! ” and Kitty sprang from her 
seat: “what is it?” 

Glen answered by removing the chain that held the 
locket whereon she had had engraved her motto. 
“ Kitty, I don’t deserve to wear it,” she said. 

“ Glen, Glen, what do you mean ? ” 

“ I mean that I have been miserably selfish, 
while I was priding myself upon my seperiority — 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


that I have been setting myself up, while you, oh 
you dear, blessed Kitty — you have showed me the 
right, unselfish thing I should have done ! ” 

Glen was nobler than she gave herself credit for at 
the time, for then and there moved out of her self-ab- 
sorption, with flushing cheeks, she did sore pen- 
nance by frankly confessing herself to Kitty — by 
telling her of all her selfish thoughtlessness, by 
saying at the end — “And Josephine is my own 
cousin, Kitty, whom I thought I was doing so much 
for in sending her my old dresses that I didn’t 
want, for her to take the time and the money that 
she couldn’t spare, to fit them over herself.” 

Kitty distressed and sympathetic, and deprecat- 
ing her own simplicity of action as anything no- 
ble, tried in vain to console her friend by praise 
of her present frankness, and delicate excuses for 
her former thoughtlessness. There was no half- 
way to Glen. Once the truth was placed before 
her she never attempted to shirk it, and it showed 
what a really fine basis there was to her char- 
acter, that fond as she was of praise and adulation, 
that she did not now fall back upon Kitty’s praises 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 

and excuses. She listened to them, however, but 
with a new look in her eyes — an admiring look 
of appreciation — for Kitty, whose ways she had 
ignorantly called “small ways ; ” and presently with 
this new look in her eyes, and with her usual quiet 
composure, she bent over and clasped the chain 
and locket she had worn about .Kitty’s neck. 

“ It is you who should wear this and not I, Kitty 
dear,” she said gently. Kitty tried to protest, but 
Glen made it a matter of personal favor. 

“ I want you to wear the motto to please me, 
Kitty; not as I have worn it for a reminder, but 
as our knight of the old days wore it, as a seal and 
sign of his own nobility.” 

Kitty could not understand, she never did un- 
derstand why Glen should make so much of so 
small a matter. Like all simple, unimaginative 
persons, she could not rate herself, and simply 
thought she had done a very natural and com- 
monplace thing, and that Glen who was so clever, 
and had so much to do that w^as splendid and 
brilliant for people, had only forgotten to do the 
commonplace thing for awhile. Perhaps if this 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


dear, modest, good little girl could have stepped 
into the Emorys’ small sitting-rpom some time after 
this, and heard Josephine exclaim at the check she 
found in a letter from her cousin Glen, and have 
heard her read aloud to her mother the letter 
itself, and have heard Josephine’s tearful but 
altogether happy comment, she would have under- 
stood better the value of her own unselfish example. 


EVERYBODY SURPRISED 
BUT ADDIE. 


O NE First of April — that is, the day when many 
delight in playing tricks upon each other — 
the girls and boys in Miss Teachem’s primary school 
had been having a merry time. 

Freddy Boyce had pinned a long curled shaving to 
Tommy Brown’s new jacket, and Tommy had walked 
proudly about the playground a good while before he 
found it out; Mary Lee had sent Carrie Lee to the 
front gate to see u somebody very particular,” and 
“ somebody very particular” had proved to be 
Bounce, the big dog that lived next door ; and Kitty 
Clover had told Sarah Raft to “open her mouth and 
shut her eyes for something good,” and then ran slyly 
away, leaving Sarah standing under the grape arbor 
looking silly enough. It was just then that Addie 
Winwill said, “ O girls, I’m going to play a trick on 


EVERYBODY SURPRISED BUT ADDIE. 


Margery Hall. You know her folks are so poor she 
never brings anything for her lunch but a slice of 
bread and butter in a strawberry-basket. She won’t 
be out for ten minutes, ’cause she’s being kept in for 
not knowing her jography. And I am going to take 
the bread and give it to Bounce, and we’ll see how 
funny she’ll look when she can’t find it.” 

“ Oh, don’t, Addie ! ” said some of the girls and 
boys. “ She’ll be so hungry, poor little thing ! ” 

“ Do, Addie,” said the others ; “ it’ll be such fun ! ” 
And away went Addie, carrying the lunch-box in 
which she brought her own lunch with her, to the 
closet where the strawberry-basket hung under Mar- 
gery’ s hat and shawl, and in a moment or two she 
came back with the bread and threw it over the fence 
to Bounce, who swallowed it in a second. 

“ Shame ! ” cried those who had said “ Don’t! ” 
But those who had said “ Do ! ” began to 
laugh, and they laughed loudly when they saw Mar- 
gery coming out of the closet with her basket. 
And as she lifted the napkin they shouted, “April 
Fool ! ” 

But much to their surprise, instead of the look of 




































































































, V 


EVERYBODY SURPRISED BUT ADDIE. 

disappointment and the tears they expected to see, 
the brightest of smiles shone on the child’s pale face. 
And no wonder. The slice of bread was gone, to be 
sure, but in its place was a nice biscuit-sandwich, a 
thick piece of raisin-cake, a large orange and a paper 
of chocolate caramels. 

Then came the turn of the “ Don’t ” girls and boys, 
as she took these things out one after the other, to 
laugh and shout “April Fool!” while the “ Do 
party never said a word, but looked at Addie Winwill 
as though they’d all like to slap her. 

Slap her, indeed ! Hers was the only really pleas- 
ant Firs t-of- April joke I ever heard of. 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


W ERE I to ask a boy or a girl to-day if they 
were going to walk in the Floral Procession, 
and who was to be partner, how they would stare ! 
If they were polite, as well as curious, I think they 
would say the next minute, “ We don’t know what you 
mean, ma’am. Will you please tell us ?” 

With all the pleasure in the world ; for the very 
question that seems so strange now, for weeks before 
Fourth of July was the all-absorbing one to us young 
Boston folks a generation ago, and how much longer 
I do not venture to say. 

Thirty years ago a certain little girl, whose memory 
of those days is clearer than her memory of last year, 
walked home from school arm in arm with her favor- 
ite schoolmate, Nelly Alden. I think, to be accurate, 
their arms were round each other’s waist. 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


“You’ll walk with me, Ellie,” said Nelly, “sure; 
won’t you ? You never did since you were born, and 
it will be splendid. Just as if I had a really sister 
like you and Hetty ! ” 

“ You know, Nelly, I love you dearly ; but if Hetty 
was home, I couldn’t walk with you in the Floral, for 
Hetty and I always have been everywhere together 
and done everything together. We just began 
together, you know.” 

Hetty and Ellie were twins, and all their little lives 
hitherto had been inseparable ; but mamma was ill, 
and deft little Eletty had gone with her to be her 
handmaiden for a few weeks at the seashore this very 
July. And so it happened that Ellie and Nelly — 
Brownie and Goldy — were to be mates in the Floral 
Procession. 

But what was the Floral Procession ? That is just 
what I am going to tell you. 

Before Boston was so big or so full as it is now, 
we had very different ways of celebrating Indepen- 
dence Day from any that would be possible to-day. 
Of course there were bell-ringing and cannon, fire- 
crackers and pop-guns, regattas and picnics, fireworks 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


and balloons, processions and speeches. They do all 
those things now, too, only a great deal more and 
bigger and noisier ; but one of the things we did 
have and you don’t have, was the Floral Procession. 

Who started the idea I cannot say ; but I have a 
vague impression that Mr. Charles Barnard and the 
Warren-street Chapel (now Warrenton street) had a 
^reat deal to do with it. The children of the differ- 
ent Sunday-schools in the vicinity of Boston — sub- 
urbs some were then, but now a part of the great city 
— Roxbury, Dorchester, Charlestown, Cambridge, 
and I don’t know how many more, gathered under 
the charge of their superintendents and teachers ; the 
earliest appearing about sunrise, new-comers swelling 
the ranks from time to time, until the striking of the 
clock warned the laggard to hurry up if they did not 
wish to forfeit their places in the procession. The 
girls were dressed in white, with or without straw- 
hats, preferably without. In that case a perfect 
flower-garden of a wreath protected the otherwise 
bare head. Sashes and shoulder-knots of gay ribbon 
fluttered in the breeze, garlands hung from the 
shoulders and trimmed the dresses. Every child 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


looked as much as possible like a special Queen of 
the May, for even the poorer children could find 
plenty of wild flowers and trailing vines, and often 
the simplest, scantiest frock was the prettiest, when 
the buds and blossoms from wood and field, and the 
graceful clematis, had transformed an ordinary child 
into a dryad. 

The boys wore white linen, or light nankeen suits; 
if not a whole suit, always white trousers, and the 
jacket made gay with flowers in the button-holes and 
a close wreath round the straw hats. Every child, 
beside their personal decorations, carried some floral 
treasure, either a bouquet, a garland, a flower-basket, 
or a spray of great white day-lilies, each provided ac- 
cording to the fancy or taste of the child, or those at 
home who were interested. 

Each school of any size had its own “ band,” as 
it was called ; though sometimes a fife and drum was 
all it numbered. Children march better to music, 
for every one knows it takes the tired out of little feet 
if a band play in hearing with a good lively rhythm. 

The children were paired, as nearly as possible, by 
sizes, and were enjoined to keep close ranks after they 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


had fairly started. There were gay banners with 
pretty devices, chiefly patriotic, bright flags and floral 
arches, and each school had also a pennon with the 
name of the town or society in large letters — a sort 
of rallying-point for the classes. 

One delegation after another arrived at the place 
appointed — if my memory serves me it was in front 
of the chapel — and a brief address was made, which 
I do not think interested the children so much as it 
did the speaker, for the little feet were impatient for 
the start. 

A pretty sight it was to those who watched the 
long procession of children, flower-wreathed and 
flower-crowned — a prettier forest than came from 
Dunsinane — winding in and out of the crooked streets 
of dear old Boston. Up and down where the hand- 
some houses stood then, replaced long since by bus- 
tling stores, past windows and balconies thronged with 
eager spectators who came from far and near to see 
the wonderful Floral Procession. 

The drums beat, the bands played, the boys cheered, 
the people applauded, the mayor made a speech, and 
then on went the Floral Procession, round the mall, 



u 




THE PROCESSION. 


A PRETTY STGHT IT WAS. 




























































































































































































































































THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


past Colonnade Row, up Beacon Street, by the old 
Hancock house — would it were standing now ! — and 
on to the Common — which meant fairy-land to us, 
especially those of us who lived in Roxbury or Dor- 
chester and knew little of Boston proper, except 
through a jolting ride in an “ hourly,” the acme of 
honor in my childhood. 

There was no Public Garden in those days, no 
Back Bay land, but a great deal of Back Bay water; 
but the Common was free as air, as its donors meant 
it should be. Gravel or greensward, rich man’s son 
or street gamin, all could roam at will. My child- 
hood brings up no memory of the stem warning: 
“ Keep off the grass.” 

But the charm of Boston Common on Indepen- 
dence Day was not in the green grass nor the big 
trees — we had plenty of those in Roxbury; the 
wonder and delight was in the huge tents, pavilions 
and booths, where all sorts of mild refreshments were 
obtainable for a consideration, from the festive ginger- 
cakes so attractive in their gilt and so delicious in 
spices, to the pink lemonade in tubs, served in glass 
cups with handles, each cup having its fragment of 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


lemon-peel and its one strawberry floating on top. 
I think the pretty color gave the flavor, for, as I recall 
it, the suggestions of either sweet or sour are very 
feeble. 

It was nectar then, however — who would not 
drink the drink of the gods when it was obtainable 
for three cents ! A small glass could be had for 
two ! The ginger-cakes cost one cent. But a cent 
in those days was a dignified affair ; larger than a 
modern quarter, usually dingy from long service, and 
giving a peculiar greenish tinge and coppery odor to 
the hot little hand that grasped it long and close. 

Under those tents ice-cream was sold, not in sau- 
cers, but in funny little narrow glasses that would 
have brimmed over with a tablespoonful of liquid, and 
had such a generous overflowing bounty of aspect 
when the spoonful of pink ice was dexterously hitched 
on to it (one had to be experienced in the business to 
do it artistically), and looked to the childish eyes like 
a Santa Sophia of delight ! How coyly we assaulted 
it round the edges ; scraped a bit here, a bit there ! 
chasing a truant drop on its way down the side of the 
glass, daintily pecking at the pink drift with the point 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


of the spoon, making twenty tastes where a modern 
boy or girl would find but one mouthful ! How long 
an ice-cream could be made to last ! That bliss of 
possession was always too deep for words. If impe- 
cunious, it was not at all questionable to ask for two 
spoons with one glass, and then the assault was car- 
ried on simultaneously, but with perfect impartiality, 
from opposite sides. It was a test of confidence, as 
well as affection, to eat ice-cream “ on halves.” The 
fun was about as good, and cost each of us five cents 
then instead of ten. 

There were whirligigs and fandangoes, there were 
Savoyards with white mice and marmosets. There 
were Swiss bell-ringers, and Tyrolese peasants with 
broad hats and yards and yards of green ribbon. 
They sang, “Buy a Broom,” and had the funny little 
brooms, whittled out of pine, in bunches ready for 
sale. Feather dusters have taken their place, but I 
would go some distance to get one of those queer fly- 
brooms to-day ; the handle was fairly smooth, the 
strands were thin shavings drawn in some peculiar 
way over the edge of the knife, so that they curled in 
regular spirals, like the spills one makes for lamp- 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


lighters ; a sort of fancy rosette was whittled from 
the stick as a heading, but the whole thing was one 
piece of wood. 

Except in special cases the responsibility for the 
children ceased after they were landed on the Com- 
mon ; for in the course of the day they were joined 
by father or brothers, or big sisters, or else found 
their way home alone as best they could. It seems 
to me that the beginning of the day was brighter than 
the ending, but that is often the way with holidays. 

Now you know what the Floral Procession was, we 
must go back to Goldie and Brownie, who were lay- 
ing their plans together so lovingly the night before 
the Fourth. 

“ What are you going to carry, Nelly ? ” 

“ Our white Arum lilies are out, and papa says I 
may have a bunch of those,” said Nelly. 

“ Oh, that’s lovely ! you’ll look just like the angel 
in mamma’s picture with the Annunciation lilies ! ” 
and Brownie gave Goldie an enthusiastic hug and 
squeeze in anticipation. 

“ What shall you take, Ellie ? ” 

“ A big bunch of roses. The Harrisons are back- 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


ward this year, so they will be just right, and the 
damask roses and the late white roses and lots of 
sweet-brier. Dick says if he cuts them before he 
goes to bed and puts them in a jug, they’ll be open 
just right in the morning, and I couldn’t cut them 
myself. He’s going down the harbor with Sam Lang- 
maid fishing, and they have to start before daylight.” 

“ Won’t he meet you on the Common in the after- 
noon ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ! at four o’clock. You’ll call for me, 
Goldie, won’t you ? ” 

“ Yes, at six ; good-by.” 

It wasn’t half so much fun to get ready for the 
Floral Procession as if Hetty had been with her, and 
some of Ellie’s blunders wouldn’t have happened if 
mamma had been at home. As it was, aunt Hepsy 
had seen that Ellie’s white dress was in order ; and 
the little frock was spread out on the spare-chamber 
bed, with her blue sash and shoulder-knots, her gipsy 
hat of open-work Tuscan braid, her open-work stock- 
ings and mitts, and her best light morocco shoes 
with blue rosettes. Not the wisest wear for little 
feet that were to walk for miles in a July sun, over 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


blistering pavements. Elbe’s garlands were to be of 
i/y, because they kept fresh so much longer. Dick 
had clipped those and stuck them into the big blue 
ewer. The roses he would cut by starlight, long 
after Ellie had gone to bed. 

The sun’s first rays woke the little sleeper from a 
perfect fairy-dream of fays and flowers and proces- 
sions that reached beyond the stars. Before Elbe’s 
eyes were half open she was in the big “ hat tub ” 
for her morning bath, and came out as fresh and rosy 
as a water-nymph. Aunt Hepsy wasn’t up. Some- 
how, elderly aunts are not so apt as mammas to get 
up at daylight to see that little girls are rightly 
started, but Dinah had breakfast ready for her pet, 
and Chloe was very good-natured about fastening 
the wreaths and hooking the dress, which squeezed a 
little, having shrunk a little in washing, or possibly 
Ellie had grown. 

When her mitts were on and her gipsy tied, Chloe 
tipped the cheval glass for Ellie to see herself. A 
little glow of vanity touched her, and she wished 
heartily that mamma and Hetty could see how nice 
she looked ! 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 

\ . 

Nothing was wanting but the roses, and those were 

to be on the porch ready for her in the big Chinese 

jug- 

Poor Elbe ! Joyfully she tripped over the porch 
to the corner for her roses. Alas ! Sport or Jip, or 
some other mischievous dog, had tipped over the jug, 
the water was spilt, and all the beautiful roses were 
either torn in the canine frolic, or withered and 
drooping. 

The big tears came, and the day, so bright a mo- 
ment before, was darkly overcast indeed. 

“ O Chloe, what shall I do ? There’s not a 
single rose left, and nothing fit to cut in the garden, 
and everything’s wet with the heavy dew ! I can’t 
go in the Floral Procession without any flowers ! ” 

“ Dontee cry, missy ! Chloe get de pretty roses, 
nebber fade all day ! Won’t no harm come ! Put de 
roses back ’gain all same ! ” 

In an instant Chloe was in and out of the parlor, 
bringing in triumph a vase of lovely feather-roses 
that uncle Will had brought from Mexico ; they 
were exquisite imitations of nature made by the Mex- 
ican women — for old association’s sake I bought 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


some like them at the Mexican exhibit at the Cen- 
tennial. They were always covered with a glass 
shade, and were a justly prized curiosity. 

The squabby vase that held them was of dark blue 
china, with a medallion of painted figures, Watteau 
shepherdesses and cupids, as priceless as the flowers. 
All Chloe’s efforts failed to draw the bouquet from 
the vase : the flowers were wired or cemented in. 

“Never missy mind — vase make de roses pretty, 
prettier — jess hug de vase tight — nobody mind.” 

Elbe’s only thought was of the pretty flowers; 
impulse and expediency sometimes blind older and 
wiser eyes than hers. She took the vase and the 
beautiful feather-roses without ever questioning the 
right or wrong. 

It was time for Nelly, and our little maiden walked 
down the long avenue to meet her “partner.” Mr. 
Alden’s errand boy was at the gate, with word that 
Nelly had sprained her foot, not badly, but enough 
for Dr. John to forbid her walking in the procession, 
and Miss Ellie must go without her. 

That was a sore trial indeed ; but all the same our 
heroine marched bravely on alone; fell into rank 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


under Miss Blake’s eye, not caring much who was 
her partner, now that Goldie wasn’t ; hugging her 
blue vase all the harder when she thought of the 
disappointment, when she had hoped to have had 
Goldilock with the Arum lilies by her side, and her 
own fresh, fragrant roses, instead of these feather 
things that were pretty to look at, but pricked and 
tickled her nose and chin, no matter how she held 
them. 

Somehow it was harder to hold a vase than a 
bouquet, though it was not very big ; and long before 
their delegation reached the chapel, she wished the 
things were safe home under the glass shade. 

The excitement of the march and the music kept 
her up pretty well, and sometimes she would hear 
something said at the windows, or in the balconies, 
about “ that picturesque child with the blue vase ; ” 
but she guessed they didn’t know how tired she was ! 

When the Floral Procession entered the Common, 
Elbe’s real woe began. The others flung away their 
flowers if they wished, or hung the garlands on the ' 
fence, or swung the baskets on their arms, and 
frolicked and romped as freely as possible ; but she, 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


poor child, was as badly off as Sinbad with the Old 
Man of the Sea upon his shoulders ; only her 
burden was a blue-china vase and a bunch of red 
and yellow and white feather-roses. She dared not 
lay it down, and every one she knew was too busy 
having a good time for her to ask them to take it for 
her. She wanted some pink lemonade, she was 
terribly thirsty with the heat and dust, but she 
couldn’t crowd in there under the tent with those 
flowers. She poked one hand into her pocket and 
got one loose penny and bought a gilt ginger-cake ; 
but her little snap purse took two hands to open, and 
she had only one. She ate the ginger-cake, and was 
thirstier than ever. Oh for one of those delicious, 
heaping glasses of ice-cream ! Such good times, and 
she so close to them and not in them ! 

Poor little girlie ! after all these years my thoughts 
go back to her most pitifully, as she crept away from 
the happy, thoughtless crowd, with her gay vase and 
bright flowers, now a most intolerable burden, and 
«sat dowfi on a low bench under a big tree, whose 
kindly shade was more like sympathy than anything 
she had met all day. 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


She was too miserable even to wipe away the tears 
that welled up, brimmed over, and fell, making a 
way for themselves down her hot, dusty cheeks. A 
forlorn picture indeed ! And how her poor feet 
ached in those new morocco shoes ! Even the blue 
rosettes were no solace. How long she sat there I 
do not know ; the tears shut out everything. And 
when a kindly voice said : 

“ What is the trouble little girl ? Can I help 
you ? ” 

She could see nothing but a motherly face stoop- 
ing over hers, while a soft cambric handkerchief 
wiped away some of the tears, and the motherly 
figure sat down beside her and gently drew the blue 
vase from her close clasp. 

“ Let me hold this for you, my dear, and tell me 
all about it.” 

The flood-gates were open, and Elbe told the 
whole story : that mamma and Hetty were away, and 
Goldie sprained her foot, and her real roses were 
spoiled, and she took the feather-roses and the blue 
vase, and she didn’t think they’d be so heavy, and 
now she couldn’t play, nor swing, nor eat ice-cream — 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


in short, all Ellie’s misery was poured out, and 
lightened in the very telling. 

She had not noticed that the lady had beckoned 
to a serving-man, to whom she gave a brief order. 
He soon returned with a tray of ices, cakes and 
lemonade, and a pitcher of water. 

“ Take this napkin, dear, and pour some water 
over it and cool your face. You look so tired and 
warm.” 

How delicious that cool, wet napkin was, and how 
brave, and fresh, and tidy Elbe felt once more when 
the dust and tears were wiped away ! She had a 
smile already on her lips ; the smile turned to a glad, 
happy little laugh when her kind neighbor handed her 
an ice-cream, and drank her health in pink lemonade. 

Then — can you imagine Ellie’s bliss? (no, you 
can’t, unless you’ve lugged round a dreadful blue- 
china vase with a bunch of feather-roses in it, for 
four mortal hours!) — I repeat it: can you imagine 
Ellie’s bliss when the lady said, “ Peter shall put 
the vase and the flowers in the carriage and look 
after them while we go and see the fandango and 
the whirligig.” 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


So Ellie went off hand in hand with the dear lady, 
and had a good time after all, no matter whether 
she deserved it or not. 

It was nice to find that the kindly lady knew her 
grandmamma; they had been schoolmates long, long 
ago. It seemed pleasanter than if it had been what 
Dick would call “ a real out-and-out stranger.” 

An hour or two of fandango, whirligig, and merry- 
go-round, Swiss bell-ringers and Tyrolese peasants, 
was enough for the little girl and her tired feet. She 
spent her quarter on two pretty brooms made gay with 
knots of ribbon — one for mamma, and one for 
Hetty. 

Then the dear lady said, “I am going to drive 
out to Roxbury, and will leave you and your treasures 
at the Cedars, if you will go with me now. I really 
do not think you ought to stay here all day alone. 
We will see Mr. Kneeland before we go, so that 
Dick when he comes will not be anxious.” 

“Thank you very much, ma’am,” said Ellie; “I 
would like to go home.” 

When the dear, kind lady said “ good-by ” to 
Ellie, she gave her a card to show to her grand- 


THE FLORAL PROCESSION. 


mamma some day in Kadesh. It was a small, thin, 
glazed visiting card, that would look old-fashioned 
now, but Elbe treasured it for many a year ; for the 
name it bore was one endeared to thousands who 
never met the owner face to face, and knew of 
her only through the great, kind, loving heart that 
throbbed with benevolence and patriotism to the very 
end of her long, useful life. 

It was Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, whose memory is 
not only forever associated with the preservation of 
Mt. Vernon, but is fragrant in hearts of myriads for 
whom she did just such unobtrusive, kindly deeds 
as this which took the pain and misery out of Elbe’s 
Floral Procession. 


A VEXED QUESTION. 



OT long ago a lady told me that whenever her 


-h ^ small nephew had a story told or read to him 
he always asked, “ What is the moral of it?” 

Now, as I dipped my pen into the ink previous to 
writing this real incident in the lives of two little 
girls, what should come into my mind but that little 
boy’s question, “ What is the moral of it ? ” 

Candor impels me to confess I do not know; 
however, there was a certain vexed question pertain- 
ing to it that some one of you may be able to decide. 

One afternoon two little sisters of five and six were 
in their play-room taking tea. This play-room was a 
large sunny apartment in the third story of a big 
country house, a house with hosts of rooms, long 
rambling corridors, and stair-flights so high that Buz, 
the elder one, used to go thump, bump, down some 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


stairway every little while, and afterwards sit sorrow- 
fully swathed in bandages in her mother’s room, full 
opportunity being given her to reflect upon her heed- 
less way of doing things. Fuz, the younger sister, 
never fell down them, for the reason that she was 
given to be slower and more cautious than her small 
whirlwind of a relative. 

In their play-room were their treasures in the shape 
of clay and wooden dolls, and two big rag-babies 
named Lucretia and Marcretia. In the centre of 
the room stood a cunning little table flanked by two 
as cunning little chairs; and here Buz and Fuz were 
accustomed to give an intermittent series of dinners 
and teas. They had one pewter, one wooden, and 
one new china set of dishes. The china set was to 
them something very nice and precious, and after 
considerable discussion, quite animated of course, 
they had divided it in this wise : sugai-bowl, Buz’s ; 
sugar-bowl lid, Fuz’s; teapot, Buz’s; teapot lid, 
Fuz’s. At this point Fuz, although a meek child, 
began to think she had too much lid and too little 
bowl ; but Buz generously allowed her the whole of 
the cream pitcher, handle and all. After this they 













. 
































* 

■ 


























A VEXED QUESTION. 


found it easy to divide equally the plates, and cups 
and saucers, and were happy in joint ownership. 

Upon the afternoon in which I have brought them 
to your notice they were enjoying a grand supper 
served up in fine style on the china dishes. Buz, as 
Mrs. Jones, dispensed hospitalities; Fuz, as Mrs. 
Smith with an interesting family of babies, graciously 
received them. Their real bill of fare was a big red 
apple, which they had carefully sliced up. Each 
slice was then cut and scalloped in an intricate 
manner, and was changed by their vivid imaginations 
into fish, flesh and fowl. 

Suddenly, breaking in upon this idyllic feast, their 
mother’s voice floated up to them from the lower 
hall : “ Children, I want you.” 

“ Cookies ! ” said Buz, with a rush. 

“ Doughnuts ! ” prophesied Fuz. 

But their lovely mother, standing in a waiting 
attitude at the stair-foot, had no cakes for them. 
“ We have company,” she said : “ Mr. Rocket and 
his wife and little girl. Come into the parlor.” Now 
the children knew Mr. Rocket very slightly, and 
they had never seen his wife or daughter ; so it was 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


with some constraint they followed mamma in, to be 
duly presented to, and become acquainted with, the 
little girl. She was considerably older than they 
were, and was that disagreeable creature — a spoiled 
child. Although the youngest member of her family 
she ruled her seniors with a rod of iron. “ Dear 
Martha is so delicate,” her mother sometimes said 
apologetically, “ that we must not cross her.” 

She was a very dark-skinned little girl, with posi- 
tive ways and a rather scornful cast of countenance. 
But Buz, vivacious and sunny, was never deterred by 
timidity from making friendly overtures to any one, 
and before long she was inviting Miss Rocket to come 
up to their play-room. 

Fuz felt that propriety demanded that she too 
should second the invitation. “Yes, do come please, 
little black girl,” she said, blushing painfully, for she 
was the shyest little mortal that ever was. 

Immediately, Buz gave her sister such a look, and 
ran to her mother. “O mother,” she whispered, 
“ Fuz calls our company a little black girl ! ” 

Mrs. Harland, excusing herself, led the wondering 
Fuz into the hall. She didn’t want to scold her 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


honest little daughter ; but she did want her to know 
that she must not speak every thought so openly. 
*' Fuz,” she said gravely, “ I am very sorry you were 
so impolite as to call Martha Rocket “ little black 
girl.” She is not a negro, and if she were it would 
be very unkind to mention her color when speaking 
to her.” 

Fuz raised two eyes like violets in an April shower. 
Oh, how mortified and ashamed she felt ! She went by 
herself and wept a little weep, then went shyly up to 
the play-room where Buz had taken Martha. 

Martha was both patronizing and critical, and 
found flaws in almost everything. Her comparisons 
made Buz uneasy. She had an ever so much nicer 
chair and table at home. Her play-room had a 
carpet on the floor. Clay dolls were poor things. 
She had a wax doll with real hair, and the loveliest 
eyes, and a pink silk dress ; at which ravishing descrip- 
tion Buz gave Lucretia a spiteful push into the corner, 
and looked disdainfully on her clay children ; for Buz 
never liked to be inferior in anything. 

Meantime Fuz, whose simple soul was never dis- 
turbed by comparisons, came up to Martha, meekly 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


anxious to make amends for her impoliteness. 
“This is our new china tea-set, little white girl.” 
Miss Rocket turned to stare at her in astonishment, 
and Buz pounced on her at once in an excessively 
disagreeable manner. “ Fuz,” she said in a shrill 
whisper, “ if you keep on talking so, I’ll go right 
down and tell mother, and she’ll whip you ! ” 

Poor Fuz experienced a dim, heart-rending con- 
sciousness that the world was in some way out of 
joint. Her very good was evil spoken of. She 
didn’t want to stay up here another bit. Buz was 
cruel. The new girl said, “ What does she mean ? ” 
She went out with swelling heart and a big lump 
in her throat, and hurried down, a forlorn little 
figure, to sob out her misery in papa’s empty study. 

But Buz never minded her absence, she was so 
bent on enjoying the society of her new playmate. 
Martha became excessively sociable, and began to 
praise things. She greatly admired a pretty bead 
bag that old Mrs. Dominick had given Buz ; whereat 
Buz gave it away to her at once, for she was fond of 
making presents, not so much, however, to Fuz as to 
other girls. 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


‘‘Oh, you sweet thing!” said Martha, pocketing it 
without demur. “ Dear me, isn’t your china tea-set 
cunning ? I haven’t anything like it — how I wish I 
had ! You have plenty of sets without this. I do 
wish I could have the teapot.” 

Buz twisted uneasily, and blushed. She always 
liked to do things on a grand scale, even if she re- 
pented in sackcloth and ashes afterwards ; and for 
her now to refuse Martha the teapot would seem in- 
sufferable meanness. Possibly her idea of mean- 
ness was at fault; but she is not held up as a 
pattern. 

“You can have it,” was her answer. Martha 
eagerly possessed herself of her new treasure. If 
gratitude is a lively sense of favors to come, -at that 
moment she was excessively grateful. “ You are 
just the sweetest girl ! ” she said, twining her arm 
about Buz. “ You’re lots prettier than your sister. 
She says such queer things. You don’t. Your curls 
look like corn-silk, and you’re so cunning I just want 
to squeeze you. I love you. Do?i't you think I ought 
to have something else with the teapot ?” 

“ Yes,” answered Buz, drinking in this delightful 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


flattery as a humming-bird sips nectar. “ And you 
can have the sugar-bowl ! ” 

“ You darling ! ” cried Martha, with a rapturous kiss ; 
" you are just as sweet as you look. You are the 
nicest girl I ever visited ! ” 

“ Don’t you want the cream pitcher ? ” asked Buz, 
“ and the plates and cups and saucers ? ” 

“ I ought to have them to go with my part.” 

“ You can have them,” cried Buz, with a spasm of 
generosity, “ the whole set ! ” 

Martha couldn’t even pause to kiss Buz now. She 
hastily packed her present in its box, and started to 
go down-stairs. “ I’ll just carry them down and put 
them by papa’s portmanteau in the hall,” she said, 
“ so that he can put them in it forme before we go. 
We’ve a portmanteau, because we’ve been visiting 
for a week.” 

Going down, she met Fuz coming up. “ See,” 
she said, holding out the box, “ Buz gave me this.” 

Fuz could scarcely believe her eyes. She rushed 
on up, threw open the door, and confronted Buz : 

“ You never gave it away, Buz — that girl — our 
tea-set ! ” 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


“ Stop talking. I gave it to her. It’s not ours 
any more,” said Buz, feeling that Fuz might find 
something to say about the matter ; and as the oldest 
she never allowed Fuz to criticise her actions. 

“ Oh, oh ! ” wailed Fuz, unmindful how loud she 
howled. “ My lids — my cream pitcher — your things 
— my things — all of them — I will tell mother ! ” 

Buz would have locked her unpleasant sister in 
the room if she had dared, but Fuz was too quick for 
her, and had flown down stairs. 

No matter where she had gone, Buz knew she too 
would receive a summons there soon, and she was not 
disappointed ; for in a short space her mother called 
her, and she could not disregard the command. 

“ I couldn’t help it,” she said, anxious to exonerate 
herself. “ She wanted it, and so I gave it to her. It 
was mine.” 

“ No, it was not yours,” said her mother severely. 
“ It belonged equally to your sister, and you had no 
right to give it away. I am tired, Buz, of this 
heedless and wrong generosity of yours. When you 
gave away my pretty tortoise-handled pen-knife to 
Belle Morgan last week, because she asked you for k 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


you promised me you would never give away anything 
without my knowledge again. And how long ago 
was it you gave away that nice little wire basket old 
Grandma Passum took such trouble to get for you ? 
Your heedless way of giving things causes me much 
pain. Now shall I send you to ask that little girl to 
give you back the tea-set ? You have almost broken 
your sister’s heart ! ” 

“ O mother, dear mother, don’t do that ! ” cried 
Buz in consternation ; “ oh, I will be good. I will 
never again give anything away unless you say I can. 
Only, don’t make me ask for it back again. I will be 
good, I promise ! ” 

She cried so violently that her mother paused, 
perplexed as to her right course of action ; and just 
then papa put his head in the door. “ Isn’t tea 
ready yet, dear ? It’s six o’clock, and Mr. Rocket 
wants to take the seven-o’clock stage. Can’t you 
hurry matters up a little ? ” 

Happy respite for Buz. Mother washed her dis- 
colored face and bade her came quietly to the tea- 
table. As for Fuz, to expect the attendance of such 
a Niobe was useless. 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


The supper-bell rang, the company came down, 
and then Fuz went hurriedly up-stairs. Near the 
hall door stood the Rocket portmanteau, black and 
fat ; close by, but not within it, stood the box. 

Fuz went down on her knees, and with eager hands 
shoved back the lid ; her hot tears fell fast on the 
revealed dishes ; she hesitated about running away 
with them and hiding until that wicked girl was gone ! 

But no, she would not do that. Only her very 
own share would she take out ! Off came the lids, 
poor lonely things. Out came the cream pitcher and 
her plates and cups and saucers ; and then, re-cover- 
ing the box, she went hurriedly up to the play-room. 
There she sat for a long time hugging her regained 
treasures until mother called her, and she knew the 
Rockets had taken flight. She came down in triumph. 
“ See ! ” she said, “ I took out my part. I took them 
out of that girl’s box ! ” 

“ How mean ! ” cried Buz, springing from the 
chair where she was dejectedly sitting. “ Why , you've 
stolen ! You’ve broken the commandment ! ” 

A picture of justice and righteous indignation, she 
stood there scorning her sister. 


A VEXED QUESTION. 


It was the culmination of poor Fuz’s woes ! The 
crockery fell unheeded to the floor as she hid her 
frightened face in the safe refuge of her mother’s lap. 

“ I never stole ! ” came forth her half-stifled cry. 
“ I did not break the commandment. I only took 
back my own things that I never gave away. They 
were mine — only mine ! Mother, did I steal ? ” 

And to this day, with the added weight of years 
upon her, Fuz still says dubiously, “ Did I steal?” 


POLLY’S NEST-EGG. 



O NLY a hen ! ” ended 
Jack in great con- 
tempt. “ As if any- 
j body ever did, or 
ever could, go to 
school from the sup- 
port of an old 
hen ! Don’t be 
absurd, Polly.” 
Jack’s sister 
“o my martha abby,” said polly, shook her head 

RAPTUROUSLY. 

somewhat sad- 
ly. “But, for all that, a hen can lay eggs,” said she. 

“Ho, ho, ho!” jeered Jack. “The idea of that 
ridiculous old fossil’s laying an egg! Abner, O 
Abner, hear this : Polly means to go to school at 


polly’s nest-egg. 


Augusta, on the eggs her hen, Martha Abby Judson, 
lays, and Martha Abby’s a hundred and fifty years 
old, if she’s a day.” 

Abner, the hired man, leaned over the fence and 
contemplated Polly. Jack rocked to and fro in a 
convulsion of glee. 

“ Martha Abby Judson lay an egg ! O Abner ! 
An egg — Martha Abby ! — an egg ! ” 

But Polly never smiled. Neither did Martha 
Abby Judson. Do you suppose that fowl was not 
aware that she was being made sport of ? Of course 
she knew. She stood solemnly balancing herself on 
one leg, her head drawn down between her shoulders, 
ruffling her scanty feathers, and giving a series of 
croaks which sounded as if made by means of a 
rusty file. 

“ Abner,” said Polly, soberly, “ it’s very unrespect- 
ful in you to laugh. My mother says I may go to 
the Augusta Female Cemetery if I can raise the 
money; and I can sell all the eggs my own hen lays, 
and there’ll be dozens and dozens.” 

“She means the Female Seminary ,” cried Jack, 
with a fresh giggle. 


polly’s nest-egg. 


“What’ll you be going to school in Augusty for ? ” 
asked Abner. 

“ To learn ‘ lit’chur and the arts,’ ” answered Polly 
quietly. 

Off went the wicked Jack in another burst of 
laughter. 

“ She means literature ; and ‘ the arts ’ is to work 
‘ God bless our Home ’ on card-board with green 
worsted.” 

“ It isn’t green worsted, it’s steel beads,” inter- 
rupted Polly, hotly. “Come away, Martha Abby 
Judson ! You’re a bad boy, Jack Simmons.” 

“ Craw , craw , craw ! You’re a bad boy ! ” croaked 
Martha Abby, stalking after her mistress with as 
much haughty dignity as a lame leg done up in red 
flannel would allow. 

A very lean and scrawny specimen was Martha 
Abby. She always looked as if she were indulging 
a private grief. And as for being “ a hundred and 
fifty years old,” one would hardly have been sur- 
prised to hear that she had clucked in the May- 
flower. 

“My own Martha Abby, come into your coop,” 


polly’s nest-egg. 


said Polly tenderly. “Don’t you mind that viperous 
boy, nor that receited Abner. Here’s a nest for you ; 
and don’t you think you could lay a few dozens eggs 
before the price goes down ? I do so want to learn 
lit’chur and the arts, Martha Abby.” 

“Cluck!” replied Martha Abby, briefly. From 
the tone, Polly could hardly tell whether to hope or 
despair. 

Taking the benefit of the doubt, she concluded to 
hope ; and hope she did for weeks and weeks. 
Every morning she visited the barn. Never an egg 
did she find. So time passed until one rainy morn- 
ing in summer. 

“Any eggs?” inquired the uncrushable Jack at 
the breakfast table. Patiently Polly looked up from 
her plate to answer, when, “ Cluck, cluck , craw ! ” 

There, on the threshold, stood Martha Abby 
Judson in a state of intense excitement. 

“ She’s come in to get dry,” exclaimed Polly. 

But no. Something more than wet feathers was 
evidently the matter. 

“ Cluck , cluck , craw / ” 

There was a tinge of triumph in that last wheeze, 


polly’s nest-egg. 


and Martha Abby was hobbling out again in what 
might jocosely be termed a hurry. 

“CZnck! cluck 'cluck ! ” 

“ I do believe,” began Polly, “ I verily believe — ” 

Without finishing her sentence, out into the rain, 
down to the barn she sped. There was nothing in 
the nest. Polly must wait till Martha Abby herself 
should arrive. 

Now she must follow her hen across the barn to a 
remote corner. Here Martha Abby both halted and 
ceased to halt (which you see is a joke !) and stood 
casting suspicious yet rather joyful glances at one 
tiny brown egg. 

“ O my Martha Abby,” cried Polly rapturously, 
“ I knew you could ! I was sure you would ! Oh, 
my duck of a dear, what shall we do ? ” 

“ Cluck! we’ll begin to sit,” quoth Martha Abby, 
crouching on her one egg with as much complacency 
as if it had been the “ dozens and dozens ” of prophecy. 

“ She’s laid an egg ! she’s laid an egg ! ” cried 
Polly, dancing into the house. 

“How many?” demanded Jack. “One, but a — 


lion /” 


polly’s nest-egg. 


That sentence, though highly poetical, was unfor- 
tunate ; for it immediately became next to impossible 
to prevent Jack from going in all haste to the barn, 
to “ see the beast in his native jungle, and to hear 
him roar.” 

With what eagerness did grave little Polly count 
the days before she could hear the first " peep ” of 
the coming chick. 

“And now you are so encouraged, Martha Abby, 
you will surely lay more eggs, and those we will sell. 
I just let you hatch this one to cheer your droops, 
my lovey. But we’ll raise money out of the rest, 
and I’ll have new gowns, and I’ll go to school, and 
I learn ‘lit’chur and the arts,’ and — and I must, 
you know, I must have an education.” 

In the mean time Polly flew about, helping her 
mother to put the house in order for the coming 
session of the Supreme Court. 

For the village where our Polly lived, was the 
county shire town. Twice every year the judges and 
lawyers arrived, and the prisoners were brought out 
of the brick jail to be “ sat upon,” as Jack said. 

Those were gala days to the village folk. Every 


polly’s nest-egg. 


one kept open house and entertained the “ court.” 

Mrs. Simmons’ mansion being the largest in 
the village, she always welcomed the grandest man ; 
namely, Judge Elihu Hitherfly of Augusta. 

Mrs. Simmons herself felt somewhat honored by 
the patronage of this august person. But as for 
Polly, she was much overpowered by his grandeur, 
and always quaked in her shoes when he conde- 
scended to address her in his big voice, which re- 
minded her of the rumbling of distant thunder. 

Jack’s awe was not so great. He was obliged to 
act as body-servant to Judge Hitherfly whenever 
that worthy appeared. Not only was he called upon 
to brush the judge’s clothes, black his boots, run his 
errands, but every night he was required to repair to 
the guest-chamber, and then and there tuck the 
portly embodiment of the law into bed! 

Do you wonder that Jack refused to worship his 
honor, and can you not see that it was no light matter 
to receive Judge Elihu Hitherfly under the Simmons’ 
roof ? 

Polly was, as I said, very busy. But she found 
ample leisure to watch that egg; and in due time 


polly’s nest-egg. 


came her reward ! The morning at last dawned 
when “ peep ! ” out of the egg crept what might al- 
most have been mistaken for the ghost of a chicken. 
It was the exact image of its mother. Just as lean, 
just as scrawny, just as ancient-looking, just as 
mournful. 

The irrepressible Jack set up a shout. 

“You might as well call it Lamentation , and done 
with it ! ” cried he. 

There could be found no other name half as ap- 
propriate, and henceforth “ Lamentation Judson ” 
could be seen roaming sadly about the hen-yard with 
its melancholy mamma. But Polly loved it quite as 
tenderly as if it had been a beauty. 

“ Soon you and your mother will both lay eggs for 
me,” she said cheerfully. “ An’ I need you both.” 

She even thought of inviting Judge Hitherfly to 
come out and view her darlings. She wondered if 
that great man could discern, in spite of their ex- 
teriors, the real worth of her pets. 

It really seemed as if those fowls themselves 
desired the Judge’s notice. For, the very day he 
arrived, just as the family had sat down to dinner, a 


MARTHA ABBY JUDSON SURPRISES THE FAMILY 



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pong 




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... 





polly’s nest-egg. 


“ cluck, duck, craw” and a faint “peep, peep,” were 
heard, and into the dining-room limped Martha 
Abby, followed by her attenuated child. 

How Lamentation ever climbed the doorsteps, 
remains a mystery to this day; but there she stood, 
as large as life, which is saying very little. 

The Judge stared over his gold-bowed spectacles. 
Polly started from her chair, but paused, struck by a 
sudden consternation. For — how can I tell it? — 
that respectable bird, that sedate fowl, that hereto- 
fore solemn Martha Abby Judson, spread her wings, 
mounted flapping into the air, and before the startled 
family could breathe, alighted, — horror of horrors ! — 
on the very top of Judge Elihu Hitherfly’s head. 
Here she crouched, as if she approved of such a soft 
nest ; and, “Craw, — craw, — cr-awf” said she. 

There was dire confusion, as you can well believe. 
Mrs. Simmons seized the hen with both hands. But 
Martha Abby was not to be trifled with ; and when 
she was dragged from her perch, in her claws she 
held a glossy, well-oiled black wig. 

Polly never knew what happened after that, for 
she turned and fled. She was disgraced forever. 


polly’s nest-egg. 


Awful visions of a prison-cell rose before her. What 
if she, Polly Simmons, should be dragged into court 
for the crime of owning such a hen ! Shut into her 
own room, Polly trembled. 

All at once a new idea flashed into her mind. 
Could no reparation be made? But this new idea 
made Polly tremble even more. At last it was a very 
sad little girl who stole down the back stairs. It was 
a tearful little girl who hovered over a sauce-pan on 
the kitchen stove. It was a pitiful little face oppo- 
site the insulted Judge at the tea-table. 

For, by Judge Hitherfly’s plate was a small platter. 
On the platter was much gravy ; in the midst of the 
gravy lay — 

“Why, what is this, Polly?” asked Mrs. Simmons. 

“ Mother,” mother, cried Polly, the scalding tears 
chasing one another down her cheeks, “ Mother, 
it’s — Lametitation !” 

It was indeed ; for the sin of her mother, Lamen- 
tation had been required to give up her innocent life. 

And did the Judge accept such an offering? I 
regret to state that he did. That is, he ate the gravy, 
and he would have devoured the flesh from Lamenta- 


polly’s nest-egg. 


tion’s tiny bones had there been any flesh to devour. 
As it was, he smacked his cruel lips over the bones 
themselves, and remarked, “Very good, very well sea- 
soned ! ” to Polly’s mingled satisfaction and anguish. 

It was Jack who came to Polly about nine o’clock 
that evening. 

“ That’s the last of him for to-night,” said he, 
pointing to the Judge’s chamber. “I’ve tucked him 
in with a vengeance. And he says you’re to come to 
him in the parlor to-morrow, Polly, at eight o’clock, 
^/r-cisely. See you do it, if you know what’s good 
for you.” f 

Polly dared not disobey such a summons, and at 
“ eight o’clock, pre- cisely,” she crept into the parlor. 

There stood the Judge. He gave a resounding 
“ Hem ! ” which made Polly jump. Then he opened 
his mouth and spake. 

“ I am given to understand by your mother, young 
girl, that you entertain a commendable desire to pro- 
gress in learning.” 

Polly glanced timidly up, and then down. 

“ I find myself interested in your welfare,” the 
Judge continued in his rumbling voice. “The man- 


polly’s nest-egg. 


ner in which you have conducted under late trying 
circumstances has shown me that your mind is not of 
an ordinary cast. A principle of sincere though 
mistaken justice is worth cultivating. I have offered 
for myself and Mrs. Hitherfly to consider you as our 
guest for a year, in order that you may avail yourself 
of the privileges of the Augusta Female Seminary. 
Be ready, if you please, to accompany me home next 
Wednesday.” 

Half of this address Polly by no means under- 
stood. The one clear point was that her mother 
would allow her to go to Augusta to school. She 
should have a chance at “lit’chur and the arts,” 
after all. And, wonderful to relate, it was through 
Martha Abby Judson the good fortune came. Even 
Jack admitted that. 

Martha Abby evidently understood it also ; for, on 
Wednesday, when Polly drove out of the yard in 
Judge Hitherfly’s two-wheeled chaise, there by the 
gate stood the dejected form of Martha Abby, with a 
black, instead of a red rag, round her leg. 

“I was bound to help you, somehow. Cluck y 
ducky cr-aw ! ” croaked she. 


A LITTLE TEXAS NURSE- 
GIRL. 


I AIN’T done nuthin’ dis blessed day ! no, dat I 
ain’t; nuthin’ ’tall but trot my legs off waitin’ 
on de white folks, an’ I’m goin’ to stop it ! I done 
tole Phebe p’intedly I ain’ goin’ to put up wid it, an’ 
I aint ! Miss Pattie she come a hour or so ’fo’ day, 
en’ she /listed me outen my bed wid her stories: 
“ Git up, Chatty, it’s sunrise an’ de chillen goin’ atter 
sweet-gum, an’ baby’s callin’ you ! ” So I git up en’ 
dress myself. Miss Pattie, she so airy, she bluched 
to have shoes on her nuss. I hauled ’em off soon’s I 
got to de gum-grobe. Bless dat baby ! he de 
smothes’ an’ de putties’ thing in Texas, wid his blue 
eye an’ his little red curls; an’ when dat flantin ’ 
ftdgit , Jewly Ann, cum down dere wid Mis’ Rogers’ 
gal-baby wid de black eyes, an’ Inpinny black hyar, 




A LITTLE TEXAS NURSE-GIRL. 

an’ said her toes was puttier ’an Alfred’s whole body, 
I jis kotch my sun-bonnet offen de tree, wha’ I hung 
it outen de way while we went over to t’other grove, 
an’ I war it out ’on her! de splits was made ob 
white pine too, caus’ Mas’ Henry he laugh when 
Miss Pattie was makin’ dem of pasebode, an’ he say 
he' 11 make sumthin’ Chatty won’t war out. So when 
Miss Pattie saw it all tode up, she ax me how it werd, 
an’ I tole her I went in de thicket fur dem jew - 
berries I brung her ; an’ Mas’ Henry, he say, “ I 
spec some little nigger could tell it differum.” 

Jus’ den Mis’ Rogers she kum in her fine cayadge 
wid her silks and her satins, an’ I knowed what’s de 
matter, kase she say, “No, I will not kum in ; ax her 
to step to de do’;” an’ I peeped outen de parlor 
winder, an’ see dat Jewly Ann settin’ in de cayadge 
cryin’, wid her coat all tore , an’ de strings offen her 
apon, an’ de wool stan’in’ up in little patches all ober 
her head, jus’ like I lef’ her at de grobe, ’ ceptin ’ she 
had whelps all over her face, an’ one o’ her eyes 
would bin plenty for two com’on niggas. I wus 
mighty sorry fur her, an’ me too, when I hear Miss 
Pattie say, “ I’m very sorry Mrs. Rogers — I will see 


A LITTLE TEXAS NURSE-GIRL. 


it don’t happen agin.” An’ den she kum out an’ say, 
“ Kum here, Chatty ! A pretty name for such a girl 
as you are — go to your mother, and tell her to give 
you a whipping, an’ I’ll ’splain it when I see her.” 

Now my mammy she a quare ole ooman. De white 
folks likes her, an’ say she ole-fashion, and I speck 
dat’s what’s de matter. She jus’ tuk me, soon’s I 
tell her, an’ bun me up wid her strap, an’ den she ax 
me what I bin doin’. I tole her ’bout dat impident 
Jewly Ann, an’ she say, “ Well, you wus right — dem 
po’ white folks to set up an’ say dey chillen putty es 
our’n, when our’n is owned hundreds of niggers way 
back to dey y^-fathers, and Mis’ Rogers wus a school- 
teacher an’ teached fur her livin,’ ’fo’ she married 
Mas’ Vic Rogers. But den, Miss Pattie she knows, 
an’ I kin tell you, ’s I ben sayin’ all along, de niggers 
de white folks didn’t raise ain’ fitten to kill even. 
You go on ! An’ tell Miss Pattie if you cuts up 
any more didoes to keep you home from ’Mancipation.” 

Ginger-cakes ! ain’t I glad I got dat whippin’ ? I 
clean forgot it, an’ I al’ays ’lows to behave my very 
jimmiest ’bout ’Manspation time, kase Miss Pattie 
she got a foolish way of sayin’, “ I won’t whip any 


A LITTLE TEXAS NURSE-GIRL. 


chile, so you can jus’ stay home, Chatty, till you learn 
to behave.” An’ oncet when I put de chillen’s book 
in de flour bayal, an’ hid ’em so dey could go wid me 
an’ de baby winter-grapein’ Sat’day evenin’ ’stid o’ 
studyin’ dey Sun’-school lesson, an’ Phebe foun’ dem 
when she went to make biscuits for supper, Miss 
Pattie she keep me home from de Baptises festbul 
wha’ me an’ all de res’ de Meth’dis’ gals was gwine 
to make fun o’ dem po’ stuck-up, web-footed critters 
wha wades water like a crane. 

Don’t care ! I ain’t goin’ to dredge like I is to- 
day, not if my great-gran ’chil’n is burned stayin’ 
home I I went up to de big house just smilin’ as 
baskit o’ chips from mammy’s, kase dat Cicely Ann 
wha make de chil’n’s close, she always settin’ in Miss 
Pattie’s room gigglin’ an’ ’lowin’ she diden’ use to 
ketch it from her mam-;«d. Dat gal fear spile up 
from bein’ wid white folks. Den I took de baby an’ 
de big quilt down to de big live-oak tree in de front 
yard and played tea-party wid some cake an’ milk, 
an’ him an’ me went to sleep, an’ when we woke it 
wuz dinner-time, an’ I fed him at de side-table an’ eat 
my dinner wid him. Den I fil’t de big bathin’-tub 



UNDER THE LIVE-OAK. 


















. 



























































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' 














A LITTLE TEXAS NURSE-GIRL. 


wha stan’ under de fig-tree by de back do’, all shady 
like little house, an’ can’t see it frum de road, an’ me 
an’ de two littles ones, we bathed ourselves. Den I 
tuk de baby in his waggin, an’ went jew-berryin’. I 
heerd da Cicely Ann tell Miss Pattie I jus’ wanted de 
waggin to cay'e my buckit in ; so’s I jus’ bruiig back a 
big grasshopper an’ put him in her sewin’ musheen 
draw, an’ tole her Miss Pattie sed gimme some 
thread outen it, an’ oh gravy ! how she did holler ! 
After dat I went wid de chillen to de cow-pen, wha’ 
Phebe milkin’, an’ we all tuk our tin cups an’ 
drinked some new milk kase Dr. Blake he say de baby 
m-us’ drink it warm, an’ / duz what he duz — bless him ! 

Him an’ me had supper when we kum to de house, 
an’ I put him to sleep in de ham muck. I was tired 
clean out den, but Miss Fannie she ax me to make 
up de bed in de spare-room nice for her bo dat jus’ 
kum frum New Orleans. I fix it all nice as pie, an’ 
it look so good I tumble down on it, an nex’ I know 
Mr. Hewett an’ Mas’ Henry stan’in’ dar laughin’ 
deyself to death, an’ sayin’, “ Come, Char-i-ty, we 
won’t tell on you dis time ; but please git up, an’ 
hurry to your own department.” He right good if he 


A LITTLE TEXAS NURSE- GIRL. 


does want Miss Fannie, an’ always look like he got a 
new gethrin ’ -string in his mouf. It wuz so funny, I 
tole Cicely Ann when I got in bed, an’ to-morrer it’ll 
be hoo?'ahed all ober dis place. An’ de plain truth ob 
it is I’m done workin’ like I is ben doin’, an’ I’m goin’ 
to quit it ! I don’t keer fur de turn-out nohow, 
’ceptin’ de water-millions — an’ de candy — an’ de 
ice-cream — an’ seein’ aunt Rachel dere, wid her ugly 
self makin’ eyes at us gals ; an’ oncet she ax me 
why diden’ I kum see Alice, an’ I tole her it makes 
me nervous to walk so far, an’ how she take on ’bout 
de chill’n now-days. Aunt Margrit she good to us 
gals, an’ I likes to hear her tell ’bout de white ladies 
where she go an’ stay, an’ help ’em wid dey chil’n an’ 
fruit-cake an’ mince pies ; an’ she say, “ Be smart, 
chil’n, an’ even Mrs. Allen, de grandest lady in all 
Texas, will even let you help, wid dat little jewel ob 
hers, her little granchile, Peirce, if you behave an’ 
work.” But I ain’t goin’ to kill myself wukkirt, as I 
is bin doin’, an’ dat’s de wood wid de bark on it. An’ 
I’m goin’ to sleep right now an’ sleep all day to- 
morrer to begin wid — don’t de baby wants me in de 
mornin’ ! 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


/'""'OUSIN ELIZABETH DICK was her name— 
not Miss Dick, not Elizabeth Dick, not Miss 
Elizabeth Dick. Her autograph, if solicited to-day, 
would in all probability be given, “C. Elizabeth 
Dick ; ” her silver, if she had ever possessed it, would 
not be recognized as family plate except bearing the 
initials, “C. E. D.” 

Cousin Elizabeth Dick was poor and old, yet she 
totally ignored poverty, and appeared twenty years 
her own junior. She occupied the front room of a 
“Friends’ Preparative Meeting Boarding-house.” It 
was furnished to her and for her by this religious 
society of which she was a member. She considered 
it a birthright perquisite, therefore felt under no 
obligation to any one. In this room she kept a 
school, in her front window a shop. 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


Of a more learned woman the Island of Nantucket 
could not boast. The style of her conversation, not 
to use the unpleasant term “stilted,” was quite 
“lofty.” No one objected to her long words. She 
breathed in polysyllables. From “A B A” to “Z 
E U and Appendix ” of the Encyclopaedia she could 
quote without a pause, if a listener could be found. 

Her shop, wholly in the front window, seemed 
to be invariable as a quantity. It ran as follows : 
First, slate pencils ; these, being few in number, met 
in the interior base of a glass tumbler, and flared at 
the brim. This vessel was labelled very neatly and 
distinctly, “ Ciphering Implements, one cent apiece ; 
bunktowns taken.” Next, suspended from the 
middle of the window, hung a thin muslin bag con- 
taining yellow lumps marked “The Busy Bee.” A 
third collection was of material for polishing brass ; 
the jar holding this was distinguished by the words, 
“ Putrefied Petrifaction.” No one wondered at the 
labels, few read them ; all knew beesw r ax and rotten 
stone by sight. Nor did Cousin Elizabeth Dick pre- 
tend to misunderstand her customers if, in their 
simplicity, they inquired for these articles by the 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


common name of slate-pencils and the like. She 
respected the lowly, which class comprised all those 
persons who had not perused thoroughly Johnson’s 
Dictionary and Murray’s Grammar. To one of these 
humble individuals, from whom she received many 
of the necessaries of life, she remarked, “ The charity 
that I dispense is worthier than thine, for I give the 
choicest mental food to rich and poor alike, irre- 
spective of person.” 

Cousin Elizabeth Dick’s school did not interfere 
with her shop; the two never clashed. Her pupils 
were of both sexes, of all ages, of all sizes ; each 
paying seventeen cents a week in summer and twenty 
cents a week in' winter. The difference in price 
was supposed to pay the bill for fuel, which was not, 
as might at first appear, very difficult of performance, 
the wood being donated by her patrons. 

Cousin Elizabeth Dick was a safe teacher: she held 
her pupils well in check. The tallest scholar was 
Gilbert Starbuck, the object of my story. Gilbert 
had a habit of looking down upon us young children 
in a way I despise, his contempt being much 
enhanced by the fact that he spelled from the same 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


book, the same page, the same column and in the 
same class. 

“ Surfeit ” was the trouble. “ Ph-th-is-ic ” was 
accomplished by Jared Coleman ; “ Phleg-mat-ic ” by 
one of the girls ; which brought “ Sur-feit ” to Gilbert. 
He thought, as Mary Ann had been absent a week, 
that she would not be there that day, and the 
second word would certainly be his ; so he 
crammed upon “ Phleg-mat-ic,” and lo ! a new one 
and a strange one came to him. Not one person in a 
thousand can spell “ Sur-feit ” aright by intuition, so 
Gilbert failed. Cousin Elizabeth Dick pronounced 
the same “ an ignominious, inglorious failure.” 

The lad was to be punished ; he was to sit by the 
most minute girl in school. Consequently, he took 
his seat, as directed, next to me. If there was any 
little girl whom the boy considered infinitely beneath 
him, it was the writer of this paper. In speaking of 
me or to me (he seldom committed himself in eifher 
direction), his appellation, though my father was com- 
mittee-man, was invariably, “ Carrot-locks.” 

As Gilbert sat down, he turned his back to me. 
He was all right ; any boy on the island would have 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


behaved the same to any girl under similar circum- 
stances. 

After a few moments I touched his shoulder. 
When he turned around, which he would not have 
done on second thought, he beheld me with my right 
eye shut tight and my left one wildly glaring at 
him. 

“ What you looking at ? ” said he. 

“ You ! ” I replied. 

“ Look away ! ” 

“ Can’t ! ” 

“ Why not?” 

Not daring to tell a falsehood, I said, “Well, I 
don’t think, and don’t know why anybody else should, 
that I ever in this world got a pin into my eye ; but 
if it is true, that is the reason ! Every forenoon, 
when the clock strikes ten, one eye will close and 
the other will stare.” 

He was to sit by me one week. The second day, 
at five minutes of ten, “ Carrot-locks,” he muttered, 
“what you study so hard for! awful easy lesson ! if 
you can’t get that, you ought to go into a class of 
babies ! ” 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


“ Hurrying to get through before the hour,” I 
whispered. 

As the clock struck, encouraged by his credulity, 
quick my right eyelids met, and suddenly my left 
orb, jerking round, fixed an unnatural glare upon the 
youth. This distortion I kept up as long as I could 
keep a sober countenance, which was a provokingly 
short time ; then, feigning a sigh, I resumed my 
study. I did enjoy my game. I had always feared 
this great muscular frame. Now I had him in my 
power. 

After a few days of untiring effort on my part to 
follow up this optical deception, Gilbert spoke of me 
as “ Nancy,” picked up my book when it fell, and it 
was possessed to fall very often, offered to assist me 
in subtraction, and patronized me generally. 

Saturday of the week, I was to leave Cousin 
Elizabeth Dick’s school for another. I was so happy 
at the prospect of a change that I waxed bolder and 
bolder. When the day arrived, I gave Gilbert a 
double portion, commencing precisely at ten, but con- 
tinuing full five minutes by my own counting, pro- 
bably not more than a quarter of that time in reality. 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


“Locks — Nancy, I mean — you grow worse and 
worse,” said he pathetically. 

“ Are you a goose ? ” I snapped back, for I hated 
pathos ; “ don’t you know the clocks are not alike on 
a cold day ? My eye doesn’t mind any particular one ; 
the town clock is real slow this morning ! every clock 
now says ‘ after ten,’ so my eye is all right again ! ” 

I left school, trusting never to see, never to hear, 
of Gilbert Starbuck again. I was disappointed. On 
my way to the new school with my brother, I met 
Abby Starbuck, Gilbert’s sister. She accosted my 
elder, to my great disgust, speaking very loud, in this 
wise : 

“ Dreadful about Nancy’s eyes ! — that pin that 
she got in them which gives her winks and blinks ! ” 
My brother, being very near-sighted and very weak- 
sighted, was very sensitive to any allusion of the 
kind. Knowing me to be sound in this sense, he in- 
dignantly replied, “ Nothing ails Nancy’s eyes.” 

Abby, being quicker and keener than Gilbert, evi- 
dently saw through the matter ; and raising her tone 
two octaves, shouted, “Why Nan-cy! I don’t know 
what will become of you !” 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


My brother, not perceiving my blushes, drew me 
rapidly along, but turned back with one more fling at 
our assailant in these words : 

“ She’ll become ten times a better woman than you, 
and will know more than you and Gil together ! ” 

The latter not seeming improbable, I thought the 
former not impossible, and dismissed the whole affair 
from my mind. 

Gilbert’s father, who had been a successful whal- 
ing captain, had relinquished the seas, and with his 
family removed to the then Far West. I had forgot- 
ten that such persons ever lived in our town, not 
even reverting to Cousin Elizabeth Dick under whose 
guidance were the earliest and least pleasant expe- 
riences of my very happy school-days. 

Many years from that date, travelling with my 
husband and daughter through the West, we happened 
to spend a Sunday in one of the larger cities of the 
Buckeye State. Hearing the announcement that 
a Rev. Mr. Starbuck would officiate in one of the 
churches there, our curiosity, his name being so 
purely Nantucket, decided us to attend that place of 
worship. 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


The face of the minister was entirely unknown to 
us, as we expected. In the course of the sermon, 
which was a profound production and beautifully 
delivered, a nautical figure attracted my attention; 
also an allusion to life on the seashore. Being 
interested in our local genealogy, my thoughts during 
the singing were busily engaged with dates, families, 
&c. I had almost determined to which branch 
the gentleman might possibly belong when, involun- 
tarily, the names of Abby and James and Gilbert 
presented themselves. I was in a brown study; so 
much so, that after the rest of the congregation, with 
whom I had mechanically risen, had resumed their 
seats, I remained standing, till a twitching at my 
dress by a mortified juvenile led me to perceive, to 
my own amusement, my conspicuous position. As I 
sat down, I caught the look of Gilbert Starbuck in 
the clergyman. 

The old school-room flashed upon me. The 
dinner-pails on the mantelpiece, Cousin Elizabeth 
Dick in her high-backed chair, the farce that I 
practised upon the lad that sat beside me — all appeared 
before me. 


A NANTUCKET STORY. 


Could that heavy, dull boy have made this intelli- 
gent, high-toned man ? and could Gilbert be so few 
years my senior ? It must be so, and I would prove 
it. 

At the close of the services, as the reverend 
gentleman descended from the pulpit, leaving my 
companions in a maze, I proceeded to meet the 
minister. Reaching out my hand, I said, with a 
querying, rising inflection, “ Mr. Starbuck, Carrot- 
locks?” 

His look of surprise and perplexity, his apparent 
utter ignorance of me or mine, together with my 
great presumption in approaching him, had well-nigh 
taken my breath away; but suddenly, his whole 
countenance lighting up, right there in the church, 
laughing hard, he threw his head back with : 


“ Is it after ten by all of them ? ” 


CHRISTYANN. 


O NE pleasant summer noon of the year eighteen 
hundred and fifty-nine, Christyann Smith 
stepped from her mother’s gate, as sweet and cosey 
and freckled a little girl as any on the ’pike. She 
had on her best clothes, even to her Congress gaiters, 
and carried her mother’s flowered and lined silk para- 
sol over her white little shaker bonnet trimmed with 
blue barege and ribbon. Her embroidered skirt 
showed its points below her muslin dress ; people did 
“ hand embroidery ” in those days, and the rich needle- 
work was considered worth showing. Christyann ’s 
hair was cut short around her ears. When the sun 
got a chance it shone through her shaker bonnet in 
flecks, on a snub nose and soft pretty cheeks. 

The ’pike was Hebron’s great thoroughfare. It 
was one of the arteries of travel before railroads 


CHRISTYANN. 


were so numerous. It extended like a white, broad 
flint band up grade and down, across culvert and 
bridge, more important in appearance than any rail- 
way now is. The staging days were over, but Hebron 
kept up intercourse with the world by means of hacks 
running east and west on the ’pike. 

Christyann followed the ’pike as far as she could 
every day in going to school. On the ’pike she al- 
ways walked straight, with one arm hanging by her 
side and the other folded across her stomach, unless 
she had a dinner-basket or parasol to carry ; whereas, 
if she took the short cut through dog-fennel across 
the common, she was sure to skip and run. On 
this occasion nothing could have induced her to 
cross the common, though it was three times as far 
around. 

Out of a broad white house with green window- 
shades came another little girl ; and down the orna- 
mental steps of a house with an iron knocker, still 
another, until squads and pairs of white or bright 
dresses all along the ’pike, contrasted with the plainer 
Sunday suits of little boys. 

Christyann fell in with Gusty Lyle, and then with 


CHRISTYANN. 


Edith Gage, and then with a prim, long-nosed little 
girl who looked like a duck, and was oddly named 
Alcinda Young. And each little girl carried herself 
with a consciousness of being dressed up for an im- 
portant occasion. 

“Don’t you wish it was time to go to the panorama 
now ? ” said Gusty Lyle, all in a quiver : she had a 
pink face and yellow hair, and was always tiptoeing. 
Her mother dressed her in gauzy things, and the boys 
gave her candy at school. “ I got my fi’ cents here. 
Where’s yours ? ” 

Christyann unclosed her soft, freckled fist and 
showed the precious coin in its moist nest. There 
were no nickels in those days. It was a thin bit of 
silver dated 1853. Edith and Alcinda showed simi- 
lar keys to the panorama, one in the depths of a muslin 
pocket, the other tied safely in a handkerchief 
corner. 

“I didn’t know whether your mother’d give you 
money to go,” said Alcinda, smiling aside at the 
bearer of the flowered parasol. She did not mean 
to allude to the fact that Chris’ mother was a widow 
with nothing but a homestead, obliged to take a 


CHRISTYANN. 


boarder or two. But Christyann responded with 
some sharpness : 

“ I guess she would give me money to go ! And if 
she didn’t, Mr. Morgan would, anyhow.” 

“ I think he’s the nicest old gentleman,” murmured 
Edith Gage, whose very sweet face attracted the nice 
side of everybody. Edie had on an old-fashioned spen- 
cer waist, and a very short dress showed a hole in her 
stocking. But she was very happy and placid. 

“ He’s always givin’ you things, ain’t he, Chris ! ” 
fluttered Gusty. “ Oh, I wish he boarded at my 
house ! ” 

“ Is the Secondary goin’ to the panorama ? ” 

“ No. Just the Primary’s goin’ to march,” an- 
nounced Chris. “ I guess there’s some goin’ from 
the Secondary. But they ain’t goin’ with us” 

“ It’s most two hours till three o’clock ! ” 

“ I wish they’d have it right away.” 

“ So do I. How does a panorammer look ? ” 

“ Oh, it’s pictures — the nicest pictures in the 
world ! Mr. Morgan has seen ’em. And they move 
along like — clouds or someth’n.” 

“ O— h ! ” 


CHRISTYANN. 


“ And it’s awful big.” 

“ There’s Streets’ young ones. They won’t get to 
go.” 

The girls’ gaiters were now patting irregularly off 
the ’pike upon the only paved corner Hebron owned. 
Two dirty children, with touching faces, were patting 
barefoot in the same direction. The girls looked at 
them with contempt. It was the fashion in Hebron. 
They were public nuisances, employed by their lazy 
parents to beg a living off neighbors and thriftier 
people, under the name of borrowing. It was some- 
times remarked that the children were pretty and not 
ill-behaved, and it was a pity they should be brought 
up so. Still, they were coming up so. 

“ You going to the panorama, Kate Streets? ” called 
Gusty with airy insolence. Kate was used to being 
put upon. When the boys teased her on the play- 
ground, she sidled away as quietly as she could, and 
resented nothing but an injury to Annie. 

“ No, I gueth not,” she replied in her patient lisp. 

“ You don’t want to go, do you ? ” 

“ I want to go ! ” said Annie with a pucker. Annie 
had large cinnamon-colored eyes, and a positive, un- 


CHRISTYANN. 


lisping tongue. She was about five years old. One 
of her nankeen pantalettes was split wide open and 
flapped like a curtain behind her heel. 

“ They wouldn’t let such a sight as you in,” sneered 
Alcinda Young, who would not have hurt a lame 
chicken ; but the Streets children were of less account 
than lame chickens. “ Go home and get your mother 
to sew up your panty.” 

“ Sheth bithzy,” apologized Kate. 

“We’re going to the panorammer at the church, 
and so’s all the scholars in the Primary — ’cept you.” 

“ I know that,” said Kate. 

“ Won’t your father give you money to go ? ” 

“ He hathn’t got any.” 

“ Did you ask him ? ” 

“ Yeth, I ath’d him to give Annie five thenth to go.” 

“ I want to go to the panorammer ! ” burst out 
Annie, more decidedly than before. 

“Honey,” said Kate, hugging the black-ringed 
head to her belt-line when the well-dressed girls had 
passed, “ Katie hathn’t got no five thenth to take 
Annie in the panorammer. But we’ll make the pret- 
tieth play-houth — ” 


CHRISTYANN. 


* 

“ I want to go to the panorammer,” wailed Annie. 
“ I wa7it to ! ” 

“ Yeth, I know you do, honey.” Kate smeared a 
tear down her cheek, leaving a flare of dirt. “ But 
Katie can’t git five thenth for you. Put your arm 
round me and I’ll put my arm round you, and we’ll 
hippity-hop to the barber’th thop to buy a thtick of 
candy! ” 

The teacher did not follow her regular programme 
for the afternoon. A holiday spirit prevailed. There 
was a great deal of marching and singing and chorus 
recitation. They sang “ One finger, one thumb,” and 
“The Menagerie,” and 

“ What is this that shines on me, 

So high up in the sky I see ; 

That shines so bright and loving still 
Upon the little running rill, 

Which turns the wheel 
Of yonder mill ? 

It is, oh, ’tis the moo— oon, 

That turns the wheel 
Of yonder mill ; 

It is, oh, *tis the moon ! ” 


The baby-class in which Annie Streets was nurm 


CHRISTYANN. 


bered, rendered a glee of its own, with appropriate 
pantomime : 

“Do you cry when you’re washed. 

And not love to be clean, 

And go to school dirty, 

Not fit to be seen ? 

“ Oh, look at your fingers, 

Y ou see it is so 1 
Did you ever behold 
Such a dirty black row 1 

“ Oh dear ! I must try 
To look very neat, 

So the ladies will love me : 

— And I’ll now take my seat 1 ” 

The spirit of reform never took hold upon Annie, 
however. When her fingers had duly displayed 
themselves — the only dirty black ones in the row — 
and she had now taken her seat, she doubled them 
into fists and resumed sponging her eyes with them. 
The teacher knew she was crying to go to the pano- 
rama. It was too bad. But if people kept that 
Streets family, and gave them all the amusements that 
came along into the bargain, there was no telling 
what they would expect next. Besides, the teacher 


CHRISTYANN. 


was taking in several pupils, very nice country chil- 
dren whose parents could not pay for panoramas; 
and she must draw a line somewhere. 

The recess bell rang. 

That was the great signal for departure. The 
country children scampered for their dinner-pails. 
The young caravan fell into line, two and two. 

Shouts rang on the play-ground. High-school girls, 
sedately walking and talking with their arms around 
each other, stopped to see the Primary flock file away 
in the direction of the brick church. One of the boys 
paused with a ball he had just caught in “ Antony 
Over,” to give the infants a cheer, and was almost 
caught by the opposite party skurrying suddenly 
around the end of the house after him. 

Christyann marched with Gusty Lyle. How de- 
lightful it was to be going to a panorama ! And it 
was such a pretty day ! She hugged the five cents in 
her moist palm ; and Annie Streets was making the 
air resound with her cries. 

“ Poor little thing ! ” said Christyann. It was so 
out of the fashion — out of the world — not to be 
going to the panorama. 


CHRISTYANN. 


“ Why don’t Kate take her home ? ” said Gusty. 
“ She just bawls along after us I ” 

“Annie,” whispered Kate, tearfully, in an ear 
which was deaf to counsel, “ come home, honey. 
Katie’ll put a teeter in the fenth, and oh, we’ll teeter 
tho nithe ! ” 

But Annie strained after the panorama. Why 
could all those children go in while she must stay 
out ! 

“ I want to see the panorammer,” she argued with 
Kate, “ I want to, Katie, I want to so bad — oh ! — 
oh ! — take me in, Katie, I want to go ! I want to 
go ! ” 

“ If I only had five thenth,” panted Kate under 
her patient breath, “ if I only had it ! Onthe I had 
five thenth, and thpent it for Chrithmath. Why 
didn’t I keep it to take Annie to the panorama? Oh, 
how can I thtand it ! ” 

“ I guess I’ll go back and see if I can’t get 
Annie Streets to stop cryin’,” said Christyann. 

“Who’ll march with me ? ” objected Gusty. 

Christyann went back. Annie and Kate were 
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“HERE’S MY FIVE CENTS,” SAID CHRISTY ANN 




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CHRISTYANN. 


in review before them. Christyann was conscious of 
some shame in parleying with them. She felt it was 
an unpopular movement. 

“ The wanth to go,” said Kate piteously. 

“ Here’s my five cents,” said Christyann. “ Come 
on, Annie. I’ll pay it to the man at the door and 
you can go in.” 

“But what’ll you do?” 

“ I won’t go in.” Christyann turned her plump 
speckled face sideways. “ I couldn’t stand it to go 
in, Kate, and hear her cryin’ for it outside ! ” 

That was exactly Kate’s view of the subject ; she 
did not see how anybody could stand it. Still, a 
dumb gratitude came into her eyes, creating such an 
expression as you may see in the eyes of a cow when 
her calf is lifted out of the butcher’s cart, and as she 
supposes to liberty. 

“ Come on, honey. Chrithtyann Thmith ith goin’ 
to take you in.” 

Chris marched up her two bunches of tatters. She 
knew the Streets always expected folks to do things for 
them, and this blunts the edge of kindness. But her 
heart did yearn over Annie. 


CHRISTYANN. 


“ Well, Christyann Smith ! ” exclaimed Gusty, 
looking back from the church steps. 

“ I don’t care ! ” retorted Christyann, aggressively. 
“ Now, Annie,” turning her attention to the cinna- 
mon-eyed child, “you just go right inside and sit 
down. Kate, you better wait outside for her, here 
on the steps.” 

“ Yeth,” said Kate in beatitude. 

The last bright dress and brass-buttoned jacket 
were swallowed by the church door. Christyann and 
Kate had a swift vision of some large apparatus at 
the end of the church ; the 1853 half-dime went into 
the doorkeeper’s hands, and he pushed Annie gently 
before him to a good seat in that little heaven. 

Chris turned away under the flowered parasol. She 
ached, but felt sure she would have ached worse if 
Annie had been left crying outside. No panorama 
had ever come to Hebron, before : it was probably 
the chance of a lifetime. 

“ 1 don’t care, I couldn’t help it ! ” said Chris, 
staunching some crystal drops on her cheeks. Her 
back was turned to Kate, who huddled patiently 
down on the stone steps. “ Why, say ! ” exclaimed 


CHRISTYANN. 


the doorkeeper looking out and around, “ are there 
only two of you out here ? You two might as well 
come in.” 

Chris used her handkerchief industriously before 
she turned to the doorkeeper. 

“ I haven’t got any more money.” 

“ Well, never mind that. Come right in. ’Twon’t 
make any difference for just a couple of you.” 

“And I got in for just nothin ' /” exclaimed Christy- 
ann to Mr. Morgan when she went to tell him tea was 
ready. “ And so did Kate. And oh, it was so pretty ! 
John the Baptist’s head on a dish, and the girl wore 
a blue dress, and there was cities, and mountains, 
and people riding on donkeys, and the man told 
what everything was, and the temple — and Annie 
Streets, you’d thought she was crazy ! ” 

“And what if you hadn’t got in ? ” said Mr. Morgan, 
as he started with the little girl out of the store. 
Christyann stopped skipping, and looked up at his 
world-marked face. 

“ Why, then I’d stayed out. But Annie Streets, 
seh’d a seen it, anyhow.” 


CHRISTYANN. 


“ You’d have had the reward of an approving 
conscience ? ” suggested Mr. Morgan, quizzically. 

Christyann puckered the freckles on her nose and 
forehead. “ I don’t know.” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Morgan, “ I’ve been thinking of 
chartering a canal-boat, and taking a load of you lit- 
tle fellows to the Reservoir some Saturday. And as 
you came so very near missing the panorama, don’t 
you think your mother would let you go next Satur- 
day ? ” 

The rapture suggested by this proposition would 
require to be set forth in another whole chapter of the 
Experiences of Christyann. 


DID ETHEL SEE THE 
QUEEN? 


E THEL will always insist, not only that she saw 
the queen, but that the queen spoke to her. 
Her father smiles whenever she tells the story, and 
her brother Jack, who is three years older than Ethel 
and of course a great deal wiser, openly laughs at the 
idea. “ As if Queen Victoria would speak to our 
Ethel ! ” he is accustomed to remark, “ even if 
Ethel did see her, which is quite unlikely.” But Ethel, 
nevertheless, holds stoutly to her belief, and continues 
to tell the story to any one who wants to hear it and 
who is not too openly a sceptic. 

They were all in England, as it happened, last sum- 
mer, and for one of their excursions went to Windsor 
Castle. The queen, they were told, was away, so 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN? 


that they might go through the state apartments, 
which one may not do when her majesty is at home. 
The bookseller, however, who furnished them with 
tickets was not sure but that she might come back 
that afternoon ; so they went directly to the door of 
admission, lest by leaving it till after they had seen 
the other sights they might be barred out. The 
attendant, who did not seem to know anything about 
the queen’s expected return, received them politely, 
and leading the way up-stairs proceeded to show them 
through the long series of elegant rooms. It was in 
one of the largest and stateliest of them that Ethel 
found herself separated from her father and mother 
and Jack. She had been looking at a picture of the 
family of George III., and did not notice out of which 
door the party had gone. In her uncertainty, she 
chose the one opposite to that which they had taken, 
and leading, though she did not know it, in the direc- 
tion of the queen’s private apartments. She had not 
gone far before she felt sure that she was wrong ; but 
Ethel was a brave little girl, and pushed on, 
thinking that in some of the great rooms or wide 
corridors through which she passed she must find 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN ? 


some one who would show her the way out. 

Finally, in one of the rooms she heard voices 
through a half-open door. Could it be her own party, 
she wondered ; or was it some of the attendants ? At 
any rate, she would find out. Ethel pushed open the 
door, closing it carefully behind her, as she had been 
taught to do, and stood in the room. It was a 
smaller apartment than any she had been in, and fur- 
nished, she thought, more like their own parlor in 
New York. In it were two ladies, one young and 
quite pretty, standing near the table in the middle of 
the room ; the other, seated by the window that 
looked out towards Windsor forest, an older person 
with a kindly, motherly face. She must be somebody 
of consequence, the little girl thought, because she 
wore such beautiful diamond ear-rings and pin. But 
then, Ethel was quite accustomed to diamond ear- 
rings, and did not have any fears of the lady on that 
account. Indeed, she walked over to where the 
lady was seated, and bowed in the most polite 
way. 

“ If you please,” she said, “ I’m lost.” 

Both the ladies surveyed her with a surprised look, 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN? 


and the younger, walking to the side of the room, 
laid her hand on the bell-pull. 

“ So you are lost, are you ? ” said the elder lady } 
motioning at the same time to the other not to ring 
the bell. 

Ethel nodded cordially. 

“ Yes,” she said ; “ I don’t know how it happened, 
but we were all in one of the rooms, and then I looked 
around, and I was all alone.” 

The lady frowned. 

“ Visitors to-day ! ” she exclaimed. 

“ Oh, it’s all right,” Ethel hastened to say ; “ the 
queen isn’t here, you know. She may be this after- 
noon, though. I wish I could see the queen,” she 
added meditatively. 

The frown departed from the lady’s face, and left 
in its place a bright, sweet smile. The younger per- 
son had already sat down, and was listening atten- 
tively to the conversation. 

“ Well, my dear,” said the former, “ what would you 
do if you should see the queen ? ” 

Ethel was a romantic little girl, and her cheeks 
flushed with excitement. 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN? 


“Oh,” she said, “ I would tell her how perfectly 
lovely it was, when she was a little girl, and did not 
know she was going to be queen, and met her nice 

young cousin, you know, and married him Do 

you know the queen ? ” she asked impulsively, break- 
ing off her sentence. 

The lady’s eyes were full of tears, and leaning 
forward she drew the little girl to her side and kissed 
her. 

“My daughter knows the queen,” she said; “but 
how does it happen that you know so much about her? 
You are not a little English girl, are you ? ” 

Ethel drew herself up quite proudly, as she always 
did whenever the subject of nationality was mentioned. 

“ Oh my, no ! ” she exclaimed. “ I’m a little 
American girl. We live in New York when I’m at 
home, and I read Mrs. Oliphant’s story, the one that 
was in Harper’s, you know. I wonder if the queen 
read that?” she added inquiringly, turning to the 
stately young lady, of whom, to tell the truth, Ethel 
was still a little afraid. 

But the young lady laughed. 

“ Why, I read it to her myself ! ” she said. 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN ? 


Ethel’s face lighted up with eager interest. 

“ Did you really ? ” she asked. “ How nice it 
must be for you to know the queen ! Do you have to 
wait on her like Miss Burney did?” 

“ Well, no,” smilingly ; “ not altogether.” 

Ethel’s face flushed. 

“ Why, of course not ! ” she exclaimed : “ Queen 
Victoria is too good to make anybody wait on her as 
that horrid old queen made poor Miss Burney. 
Wasn’t it shocking?” she asked sympathetically. 

“ Very ! ” assented the young lady. 

“ I wish I could see the queen,” Ethel remarked 
again, with an emphasis on the wish. 

“ I will tell you how you may see her,” observed 
the young lady quietly. 

Ethel danced up and down. “ Oh, that would be 
just too lovely for anything ! ” she said ; “ I’d walk 
from here to London to see her.” 

“Oh, you needn’t do that ! All you will have to do 
is to go down to the Quadrangle about five o’clock, 
and stand near the statue of Charles II., and you will 
see the queen when she goes out to take her drive.” 

Ethel’s face fell. 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN? 


“ Oh ! ” she said, “ the queen isn’t here to-day, and 
I shall not be here to-morrow.” 

“ But the queen may have come back by this after- 
noon,” said the young lady. 

“ Do you really think she will ? ” asked Ethel ex- 
citedly ; “ does your mamma think she will ? ” turn- 
ing again to the elderly lady. 

“ Well,” said the latter smilingly, “I think myself 
she will.” 

“ Oh,” said Ethel, “ if papa and mamma will only 
stay ! But I forgot all about them,” she added ; “ and 
mamma will be dreadfully worried about me. Would 
you mind telling me, please, how I may get out ? If 
you will only tell me, I can find the way myself.” 

The elder lady motioned with her eyes towards 
the bell-cord, which the daughter pulled. In a 
minute another lady entered the room, and having 
bowed respectfully, stood off at a little distance. 

“ This lady will show you the way,” said Ethel’s 
friend, “ and you may kiss me before you go. Lady 
Jane,” addressing the attendant, “take this little girl 
out through the state apartments, and see that no one 
else comes in that way.” 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN ? 


Ethel looked up distressfully, and her eyes filled 
with tears. 

“Oh, did I do wrong?” she cried. “I did not 
mean to be rude; I thought it was all free alike — one 
room looked just like another.” 

The lady kissed the flushed cheeks. 

“ My dear,” she said tenderly, “ you must not 
blame yourself at all. I am very glad to have seen 
you. Only I do not want other persons coming in 
whom I should not be so glad to see. Now you may 
kiss my daughter, and Lady Jane will show you the 
way back.” 

Ethel did as she was bidden, and was quite sur- 
prised with the warmth of the young lady’s embrace. 

“ Good-by ! ” she said meekly as she stood near 
the door, which Lady Jane had already opened. 

Both ladies smiled cordially. 

“ Good-by, dear,” they said. 

And then the door was shut, and Ethel found her- 
self with her guide on her way back through the big, 
lonesome state apartments. The lady, though gra- 
cious and kindly, had little to say, and Ethel did not 
feel nearly as much at home with her as with the two 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN? 


whom she had left, and who were evidently in some 
way her superiors. It was not long before they came 
to the guard-room, and here to her great joy Ethel 



discovered her father and mother and Jack, who had 
been waiting there on the assurance of the guard that 
she would certainly re-appear. 

“O mamma!” Ethel cried excitedly, “I’ve had 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN ? 


such a perfectly lovely time ; and Lady Jane was 
kind enough to show me the way back.” 

Mrs. Revere bowed. 

“We are very much indebted to you,” she said, ad- 
dressing Ethel’s guide. 

“ Indeed it was a pleasure to me,” said the lady, 
smiling ; “ I hope you have not been alarmed for the 
little girl. There was no need, she was in good 
hands.” 

“ One may be sure of that,” remarked Mr. Revere 
politely, “ in the palace of the Queen of England.” 

The lady bowed, and, with one or two more court- 
eous words, Mr. and Mrs. Revere and the children 
left the apartment and made their way again into the 
Quadrangle. 

“ O mamma ! ” exclaimed Ethel again, when they 
had got into the open air and out of hearing, “ I saw 
two of the most lovely ladies, and one of them told 
me that the queen would be home this afternoon, and 
that if we stood over there by the statue we would 
be sure to see her when she went out to take her ride. 
Mightn’t we wait, papa, and go back to London by a 
late train ? ” 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN? 


Mr. Revere looked a little uncertain. He had 
planned to return by the four-o’clock train, so as to 
get in London for dinner. But he was always will- 
ing to gratify his children where it could be reason- 
ably done, and so, after deliberating a moment, wisely 
gave way. 

“ Well,” he said, “ I suppose we might as well wait 
even if we do not see her. It will be a pleasant 
afternoon, and we can take a fly and drive through 
Eton to Stoke Pogis, where Gray wrote the 1 Elegy, * 
you know.” 

And so they did, first having visited the remaining 
sights of fche castle, and taken a very poor lunch at 
a very high price at one of the inns of the town. It 
was nearly five o’clock when the shabby old fly, in 
which they had made their excursion, drew up before 
the castle gate through which they entered again into 
the Quadrangle, and took up their place near the statue. 

They did not have long to wait. Promptly on the 
hour, Ethel’s quick ears caught the sound of horses’ 
hoofs. In another moment, through the archway on 
the right of the Quadrangle darted a beautiful carriage 
drawn by two milk-white horses, and driven by an 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN? 


imposing coachman in livery, by whose side was 
seated a tall, ungainly looking man with a Scotch cap. 

“That is Brown,” said Ethel’s father: “John 
Brown, who used to be Prince Albert’s body-servant ; 
now he attends the queen.” 

The carriage drew up before the door at the further 
right-hand corner of the Quadrangle, above which 
were two large bay windows opening, as the guard 
on top of the tower had told them that morning, into 
the queen’s private apartments. By this time, others 
had entered the Quadrangle, so that besides Mr. Re- 
vere’s party there was quite a crowd. Very soon 
their curiosity was gratified by the sight of some one 
emerging from the castle door, who opened the door 
of the carriage and stood by its side. 

It was so far off that they could not see either the 
figures or faces very distinctly, but Ethel’s father told 
her that the queen, if she were there at all, would be 
the first to enter the carriage ; so that when another 
person came out the door and was seen getting in the 
barouche, there was no doubt left in Ethel’s mind, or 
for that matter in the minds of anybody else there, 
that it was the queen. Then another lady’s figure 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN? 


was seen to enter and seat herself by the queen’s side. 
Then the carriage door was shut ; the man whom Mr. 
Revere had taken to be Brown mounted the box; the 
driver whipped up the horses, and down the hard road 
towards the archway by which it had entered came 
the royal equipage. As it drew near, Ethel strained 
her eyes. As it turned to go out of the gate, though 
it was still a couple of hundred feet away, she gave 
a little cry of surprised recognition. 

“ Why, mamma ! ” she exclaimed, “ it is the very 
lady whom I saw in the room to-day, and the one 
sitting by her side is the daughter.” 

One or two persons who were standing near and 
overheard the remark, looked curiously down at 
Ethel’s eager face. The carriage had now passed out 
of sight, and Mrs. Revere was not anxious that her 
little girl should seem to be claiming acquaintance 
with royalty. 

“ Never mind, my dear,” she said ; “ you can tell 
me about it later.” 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Revere, “ the show is over, and 
we will have to hurry to catch our train. You can 
tell us about it in the cars, Ethel, only I don’t 


DID ETHEL SEE THE QUEEN? 


imagine you could recognize anybody so far off.” 

And that always remained Mr. Revere’s opinion. 
Neither he nor Jack could ever be brought to believe 
that the little girl had actually seen the queen. But 
Mrs. Revere, I am glad to say, clings as firmly to the 
story as Ethel herself ; and so long as her mother be- 
lieves it, Ethel is satisfied. 

Ethel’s principal anxiety is lest she should have 
been rude. 

“ Mamma,” she said one night when Mrs. Revere 
was putting her to bed, “ what relation was the old 
queen whom Miss Burney waited on to Queen Vic- 
toria ? ” 

“Why, her grandmother, I believe,” said Ethel’s 
mother. 

Ethel drew a long breath. 

“ And just to think, mamma,” she said, “ I spoke 
of her as a horrid old thing. What do you suppose 
the queen must have thought ? ” 


BEELY COOLY HORTENSUS 
AND IBBY HENEREEA. 


B EELY COOLY HORTENSUS the good cat, and 
Ibby Henereea the favorite hen of the family, 
climbed to their usual perch on the sloping board 
which connected eaves and rain-water barrel. Here 
they could look over the window-curtain at the family 
— like two guardian angels. 

The outdoor starlight scarcely revealed Beely 
Cooly Hortensus’ tiger-striped coat, but the fireshine 
coming over the curtain made his eyes like opals, 
and even threw a mild domestic radiance into the 
yellow gazers of Ibby Henereea. 

The mossy house-roof sloped down quite to the 
window-top, and the front door opened at the back 
of the dwelling. 

Beside the rain-barrel Miss Hancock, the gosling, 


BEELY COOLY HORTENSUS. 


stood stretching her bill upward. Her fuzzy wings 
were no manner of use yet; every night she paddled 
around outside the rain-barrel desiring to wabble 
up that board and sit beside Beely Cooly Hortensus 
and Ibby Henereda. 

They felt themselves above her, and watched the 
houseshine with placid feelings. 

“ Our family have all drawn up to the fire and sat 
down to purr,” said Beely Cooly Hortensus, half- 
closing his eyes and burring in his own throat. 

“Except the Housefather,” said Ibby Henereea, 
settling and taking a good hold on the board. She 
sat below her companion nearer the rain-barrel. 
“ He must scratch a long way off, for he hasn’t been 
home to roost all the time since the Little House- 
mother took her verbenas in from the cold. The 
brier hedge is still around the mounds, though I 
feel no desire to make nests there now. I don’t 
believe the Little Housemother would have thanked 
me for an egg among her verbenas.” 

“ See all those apples set to roast along the 
hearth,” said Beely Cooly Hortensus. 

Miss Hancock stretched her neck up until it 



MARY MAREEA MARIA; ALSO MISS HANCOCK, B. C AND I. H. 



















*• - 
































































AND IBBY HENEREEA. 


seemed about to snap, and tried to poise on the 
toes of her webs ; but all this effort barely reached 
the second hoop of the rain-barrel. She sat down 
on her heels and snipped at some dry grass. Some- 
time Miss Hancock meant to hide in the house 
over night, and see all those great doings. She had 
been trod on, and she had been shut in the door. 
It would be a hissing shame if she did not finally 
succeed. 

“Now the Old Housemother has taken out her 
knitting,” said Beely Cooly Hortensus. “ So the fun 
will begin. The Younkers draw up to the fire.” 

“You have often sat by the fire, haven’t you?” 
remarked Ibby Henereea. 

“ Oh, yes,” replied her striped friend in a superior, 
indifferent way. “When the snow stood to the 
fence-tops and creaked under a man’s heel, I have 
lain on that hearth all night long, and felt the heat 
penetrate my coat to my very heart.” 

“It would be a lovely place for hatching,” medi- 
tated Ibby Henereea. “ I would roll my eggs into 
those rose-colored coals, where I have no doubt they 
would soon be done. It makes me smile to think 


BEELY COOLY HORTENSUS 


of the chicks stepping out daintily into such color ! ” 

Ibby Henereea smiled. 

“ It would give them aegsthetic views of life,” 
she added. 

But Miss Hancock slapped her paddles in the 
mud, where the barrel leaked. She felt quite gal- 
loped over by such large words. 

“ They don’t seem to know in there,” said Beely 
Cooly Hortensus, “ that the wind off the prairie is 
cutting, and roars like many hives of bees, and an 
ice-crust is formed over Caney Fork Slew.” 

“ What a family ours is to laugh ! ” exclaimed Ibby 
Henereea. “ They get fun out of nothing. I believe 
they could even find something amusing in me.” 

“They do caterwaul a great deal,” said Beely 
Cooly Hortensus. “ But what I find most interest- 
ing in them is their fancy for queer names and 
sounds. It may not be improving, but,” Beely Cooly 
Hortensus hesitated, and drew his whiskers through 
his teeth, “ it tickles a cat’s ear. Our White Younker 
is a marvellous big-headed boy for seven years. 
Watch his delicate chin, and the way his eyes spread. 
That boy is a credit to us.” 


AND IBBY HENEREEA. 


“ Far behind the Baby Younker,’ , maintained Ibby 
Henereea. “ She is very young to be talking and 
toddling. I have pondered her sayings as I sat on 
m y eggs. And she sings, ‘Oba’ dah, oba’ dah — I 
soon be at home oba’ dah ! * Now what foresight 
that shows 1 ” 

The tinkle of voices around the fireplace absorbed 
Beely Cooly Hortensus and Ibby Henereea. 

“ Mamma,” said the White Younker, twisting on 
his stool, “ I have begged and bay-ged and ba-a-ay- 
ged you for a story.” 

The Baby Younker, in her faded calico nightgown, 
was parading with the bare ribs of an ancient sun- 
shade above her head. “ My sarsol,” said the Baby 
Younker, swelling with satisfaction, and smoothing a 
red woollen comforter tied just under her arms. “ I 
got a srash, too.” 

“ What kind of a story do you want ? ” inquired the 
Old Housemother, pulling off so much yarn that the 
ball rolled across the floor. 

“ A big one — a three-sonned or three-daughtered 
one.” 

“ I will tell you a one-sonned and two-daughtered 


BEELY COOLY HORTENSUS 


one,” said the Old Housemother. “ There were a 
papa and mamma with three children who came to 
live on the prairie, and built a small house, with one 
door at the back, because they expected to raise a 
fine addition in front as soon as the farm produced 
good crops. But other things went backward with 
them, and the addition they got on their property was 
a mortgage.” 

“Fiddlesticks on that story!” said the White 
Younker, turning his eyes from the grand corn cob 
fire. “ There’s no fun in that.” 

“Your observation might be just, my son, if you 
knew how it was going to turn out. But privately I 
think there is fun in it. The papa finally took to 
feeding stock and shipping them to Chicago.” 

“That’s old,” scoffed the White Younker. “He’s 
done that lots of times.” 

“ If his last venture proves a good one his fortunes 
will be entirely turned round ; for a house that has 
no mortgage on it ought to open towards the road. 
And if that very papa should walk in here to-night, I 
wouldn’t be a bit surprised.” 

“ They forget,” wauled Beely Cooly Hortensus at 


AND IBBY HENEREEA. 


the ear of Ibby Henereda, “the cold open prairie 
and Caney Fork Slew ! ” 

Ibby Heneree'a muttered sympathetically, “Crah- 
crah-crah ! ” and shook her head. 

Miss Hancock knew something very interesting 
was going on, and though the Great Bear and Orion 
stuck so low out of the sky that every star appeared 
almost within reach of her bill, she took no notice of 
this wonderful night effect on the prairie, but would 
have given the down off her bosom to be up on the 
board. 

“ I wanted a fat story with nice names,” said the 
White Younker. 

“ Sreet Spe’it, hear my pur-rayer,” 
sang the Baby Younker. 

“ One of the characters,” said the Little House- 
mother, “ might be called after the southern girl at 
school — America Belle Georgia Mazeppa Rosydale 
Possy-cum-attatis Komer. She named herself.” 

“ The Dutch names and diminutives are funny,” 
said the Old Housemother. “ Two men in Pennsyl- 
vania once made a wager as to which could produce 


BEELY COOLY HORTENSUS 


the oddest real name. The man who knew a girl 
named Tonicky Bouisteel was thought to have won 
till the other came out with Mockilgee Hornocker.” 

The White Younker laughed until he shook. He 
was a slight, ribby kind of boy and easily shaken. 

“ Oh, yes,” pursued the Housemother, “ I knew a 
person myself with a long, singular name. It couldn’t 
be called singular, either, for it was very plural.” 

At this the Little Housemother laughed knowingly, 
but the White Younker Inquired with a squirm, 

“What’s plural?” 

“Plural means more than one,” said the Little 
Housemother, looking as if she were going to add, 
“ third person, feminine gender.” 

“ Humph ! ” remarked the White Younker, “ then 
you named your cat and hen plural, didn’t you ? Go 
on, mamma.” 

“I made rhyme with the name in it,” said the 
Old Housemother, pausing and biting her knit- 
ting-needle. “ If I can recollect it, I’ll repeat it for 
you.” 

“I can make poetry,” volunteered the White 
Younker. So he spun forth : 


AND IBBY HENEREEA. 


“ When first we came, we were so young 
That we could not move our toe, 

But now we are so strong that we 
Can beat the birds abtf.” 


“ It’s been so long the words have nearly gone out 
of my mind,” continued the Old Housemother. “ But 
I think they went this way — it was all nonsense : 


“ In the calico dullness of Indian summer, 

When water the road cover-o’er’d, 

Sat Mary Mareea -Maria Sophia 
Salatady Cockady Ford.”’ 

“ O mamma, that wasn’t a real name ? ” 
“Yes, it was.” 


“ ‘ I will fish up the horses’ old tracks with my shoe-string, 
And lay ’em all out on a board,’ 

Said Mary Mareea Maria Sophia 
Salatady Cockady Ford. 


“ The minnows all stood on their tails in a quiver, 
Then out of the water they poured 
At Mary Mareea Maria Sophia 
Salatady Cockady Ford. 


BEELY COOLY HORTENSNS 


“They took her by heels and by toes and by apron, 

And dragged her the river-bed toward, 

Poor Mary Mareea Maria Sophia 
Salatady Cockady Ford.” 

“ Beneath a sweet pad of illuminous lilies 
Whose leather stems burrowed and bored, 

Lies Mary Mareea Maria Sophia 
Salatady Cockady Ford.” 

“ Of all things ! ” commented the Little House- 
mother, while her mamma, laughing and somewhat 
shamefaced, went on with the knitting. The White 
Younker repeated with gusto : 

“ Mary Mareea Maria Sophia 
Salatady Cockady Ford.” 

“Cocky Ford,” shouted the Baby Younker, waving 
her parasol. 

Beely Cooly Hortensus looked at Ibby Henereea 
with eyes so immense and distinct that she could not 
help observing there were tears in them. 

“We have a very talented family,” he observed. 

“ Yes, indeed,” croodled Ibby Henereda. 

Now Miss Hancock was in such a state that she 


AND IBBY HENEREEA. 


tried to walk up the rain-barrel. Immediately after- 
wards she was under the impression that the sky had 
fallen, as there was a tradition in her family that it 
once did on a far-off ancestor named Goosey-poosey. 
She rolled over and over, until a new sky seemed to 
be forming of her web feet. But when she could get 
up and flirt herself and wipe her bill on her wing, 
she observed that Ibby Henereea had barely escaped 
tumbling in the rain-barrel, and was edging up the 
board again toward Beely Cooly Hortensus, who 
stood on his hind feet and pressed his whiskers close 
to the glass. 

“ The house is standing yet,” said Ibby Heneree'a, 
trembling. 

“ O, yes,” replied Beely Cooly Hortensus with the 
superior air which became his position and claws. 
“ It was the Housefather shutting the door hard that 
almost upset the board and barrel.” 

“ Has he come home ? Let me see, oh, let me see ! ” 

“ Let me see ! ” mourned Miss Hancock. 

“ There he is hugging them all,” said Beely Cooly 
Hortensus, “ and saying everything has turned out 
right. I wonder what that long package sticking 


BEELY COOLY HORTENSUS 


out of his pocket is ? ” Beely Cooly Hortensus 
licked his own chops. “ I have seen fish and steaks 
rolled in brown paper like that. Ptz ! It’s a doll for 
the Baby Younker. I suppose his other pockets are 
stuffed with nonsense for the others.” 

“ It looks more comfortable in there than ever,” 
meditated Ibby Henereda. And Beely Cooly Hor- 
tensus became still more alert. 

“ They are going to spread the table for him,” he 
explained ; “and when that happens I always feel as 
if I ought to go into the house.” 

“ Do go, by all means,” said Ibby Henereea. 

“Yes, I will. And as they are busy I will not 
ask them to open the door. There is always that 
broken pane in the pantry window.” 

Miss Hancock, who had started up to follow, now 
slunk quite behind the water-barrel, and wished she 
had remained in the chicken-house where the Little 
Housemother put her. 

“ I suppose,” said Beely Cooly Hortensus, in the 
pause before jumping, “ that this hind-foremost house 
will now be altered and many other changes made.” 

“ I suppose so,” said Ibby Henereea. 




AND IBBY HENEREEA. 

“ Well, I hope they’ll always be as happy as they 
are now. Good-night, Ibby Henereda.” 

“So do I. Crah — crah. There’s no telling, 
though. Good-night, Beely Cooly Hortensus,” 



CHINESE DECORATION FOR 
EASTER EGGS. 


OU should select a good-sized egg, and of a rich 



dark color. I have found that eggs laid by 
the Brahma hens are just about the right shade for 
pleasing effect. 

First make an opening in the large end and drop out 
the contents of the shell. Then with your pencil trace 
lightly on the shell some features as in fig. i. Next 
paint the whites of the eyes with solid white, and the 
lips a bright vermilion. Then go over your outlines 
with black paint or India ink, filling the eyeball with 
black. Use water-color paints. 

Now we have a showy-looking Chinaman, but he 
has no cap on; neither does he sport the national 
pigtail. To supply the first of these necessary arti- 
cles, you will cut a piece of bright-colored paper after 


CHINESE DECORATION FOR EASTER EGGS. 


the fashion of fig. 2. If you please, you can decorate 
it with a heavy line of black paint. Its pieces 1, 2, 3 
and 4, are to be bent tightly up at the dotted line, so 



DIAGRAMS OF DECORATIONS FOR EASTER EGGS. 


as to receive a decided crease. Then each one may 
be touched with stiff paste, slipped within the shell 
and fastened. Then the strip must be pasted to- 


CHINESE DECORATION FOR EASTER EGGS. 


gether at A and B, drawing one end over the other 
far enough to make the cap fit well. 

To make the pigtail, take some black silk twist 
and make a braid about four inches long, and about 
as thick as single zephyr worsted. Tie one end with 
a bit of thread, and paste the other end on the top of 
the back part of the head. This you will do before 
you fasten the cap on. Now our Chinaman is fin- 
ished — and when you have hung him up by a silken 
ribbon pasted inside of his cap, he will look very 
much like fig. 3, and he can be made to hold pop- 
corn or any light candy. 


MRS. HUNGERFORD’S SEC- 
OND LETTER FROM HOME. 


M Y dear own Mamma : — I am so sorry my 
other letter worried you. I didn’t think it 
would. After you telegrafted to know if our sicknesses 
was dangerous, and papa telegrafted back that you 
musn’t be frightened, he scolded me awful for writ- 
ing you about our measles and things. 

I think the telegraft is a splendid invention, but 
when I get big I am going to invent a new improve- 
ment to it. I am going to make the wires hollow, so 
you can look through and see for yourself whether 
we are sick or well, and other folks can look at their 
famerlies too. 

Edith is all well now. She goes to a kidney garten. 
That’s a new kind of school where they educate them 
to play their lessons, and she sings her arithmetic 


MRS. HUNGERFORD’s SECOND LETTER. 


and jography, and weaves mats, and ate some rock 
candy one day to remember the shapes of crystals. 

Papa’s cousin Jane has come to visit us : she calls 
Grandma Arnt, and she teaches me and the twins. 
She says they are too big for skirts, and so she’s 
made trowsers for ’em. Grandma and I feel sorry 
about it, but the boys were so happy when they saw 
her sewing on their trowsers that they turned sum- 
mersetts all the time. 

When they got up the next morning, they put on 
their new clothes, and they smiled so all breakfast 
time that they could hardly drink their tea. (It isn’t 
real tea, you know, only milk colored with warm 
water.) I never saw such happy boys till they tried 
to put some marbles in their pockets. Then they 
were puffectly broken-hearted. Jimmy 

f began to cry, and Josey could only just 
keep his voice steady enough to say, 
“ There-ain’t-no-bottoms — to-the-pockets 
an’-the — marbles-tumbles — out-of-mv- 

iB * 

legs.” You know cousin Jane hadn’t 
put pockets in, ’cause she said they did not need 
them ; but they thought the openings at the sides was 


MRS. HUNGERFORD’S SECOND LETTER. 

real pockets. I felt so sorry for them, and I’ve tried 
to draw a picture to show you how they looked. It’s 
Josey, but you know both the twins look ’zactly 
alike, and you can’t tell them apart. It’s worse 
than ever in trousers. 

Cousin Jane took me and the twins to spend the 
day at her sister’s in Rye. We went in the cars, and 
we had a splendid dinner, plum-pudding and little 
tarts and oranges, and all sorts of pies, and turkey. 
I kept telling the boys not to eat too much, but they 
seemed to have a splendid appetite. After dinner, 
cousin Jane sent them out in the yard for exercise. 

I wanted to go too, but I thought I ought to stay in 
and talk to the grown folks ; but I sat by the window 
to watch the twins. They went into the yard first 
where the sheep were, and said, “ baa-baa-baa,” to 
them, but the sheep crowded into one corner and 
wouldn’t answer back. So the boys came out and 
climbed up on to the pig-pen for a while and grunted 
at the pigs, and the pigs grunted back again at them 
as hard as they could, and one of them stood up and 
tried to get at their shoes. That frightened them, 
and they climbed down again. Then they went into 


MRS. HUNGERFORD’S SECOND LETTER. 

the poultry yard, and I couldn’t see them any more ; 
but pretty soon there came a scream, and we ran out 
and found the geese chasing Jimmy. He cried for 
an hour after we took him in the house ; he 
said : 

“ Dere was a one-legged goose all asleep, and I 


tooked a stick to tip 



him ober. Den he 
took his oder leg out 
L. his pocket and ran 
after us wid his mouf 


open, and all his brudders corned too, and dey all 
said, ‘ hiss-s-s-s-sh? ” 

Here’s a picture about it ; but I can’t draw geese 
as well as I can draw cats. 

Papa has bought each of the boys a new suit with 
real pockets and heaps of buttons, but I think they 
would look more polite if they didn’t wear apples and 
balls in their pockets. 

You said you wanted to hear about all of us, so I 
will tell about the baby. She hasn’t quite got over 
being cross, and she has a cold all the time, because 
she won’t keep the bed-clothes over her at night. 


MRS. HUNGERFORD’S- SECOND LETTER. 


There was an advertisement in the paper that some- 
body would sell an article for one dollar, and three 
cents for postage, that would keep children from 
kicking off the bed-clothes. So grandma sent a 
dollar bill to the place, and a postage stamp, and 
they sent her back a piece of string. Did you ever 
hear of such a humbug ? It just meant that we could 
tie the baby into her crib. Now she has a new kind 
of night-gown with legs and feet to it. She looks 
very funny when she has it on, and I’ll draw you her 
likeness going to bed. 

I don’t know as it is a very good thing for her, for 
she' is so delighted with her “footy bags,” 
as she says, that she lies on her back every 
night after she goes to bed, and sticks her 
feet straight up in the air to look at them, 
so of course she can’t keep any bed-clothes 
on. “Toes in mittens,” she says, only 
she don’t say it very plain. You would laugh if you 
could hear her talk to them and tell her “ toe toly ” 
(she means toe story) before she goes to sleep. 
I’ll write it down for you just as she says it, only she 
does it in such a funny singing way : 



MRS. HUNGERFORD S SECOND LETTER. 


Iss itter pigger marka wenta, 

Iss itter pigger homer senta, 

Iss itter pigger cooky zata, 

Iss itter pigger cama arter, 

Iss itter pigger say wee, wee, wee, 

Dey taker muzzer awaya mea. 

Now I will write it in plain English for you: 

This little pig to market went, 

This little piggy home was sent, 

This little piggy cookies ate, 

But this little piggy came too late. 

This little pig said wee, wee, wee, 

They’ve taken my mother away from me. 

Here is one more picture for you. It is a portrait 

of the baby after she is put into her crib, but it doesn’t 

look so very much like her. 

Good-by, my dearly mam- 
ma. I am your little loving 
lonesome daughter, 

Maie Hungerford. 

P. S. I thought I was through, but I always think 
of something else. I have begun to write a novel, 
but it’s a secret: no one knows it but Edith — she calls 



MRS. HUNGERFORD S SECOND LETTER. 


it a nobble. I shall have to get some grown person 
to have it printed, for I don’t think they would do it 
for a little girl. I don’t know whether I shall have 
just one book made for myself, or get a whole lot and 
sell them in a book-store. 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED 
THE BOG. 


M ANY years ago, in a far-away village, there 
stood the strangest-looking house you ever 
saw — a one-story house, rather small, very broad 
on the ground, and sloping up to no breadth at all 
at the top. And besides sloping up toward the top, 
it curved toward each end. And somehow the chim- 
ney looked as if it had been built outside and then 
pushed down through the roof, instead of growing up 
from within in the orthodox way. The upper part of 
the house had once been green, and the lower part 
had once been white. If you had seen it, you would 
certainly have cried out, “Why, it looks just like a 
boat turned upside down.” And in fact, that was 
just what it was — a real boat that had been tossed 
about on the waves all through its youth ; had car- 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG, 


ried out the fishermen full of hope to their work on 
the dim horizon, and had borne them back merrily 
singing in the late 
evening. And here 
it was in its old age, 
clear up on dry land, 



TRYING TO LOOK LIKE A REAL GENUINE HOUSE. 


with its chimney and windows and doors, trying to 
get off its sea-legs — so to speak — and look like 


I 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG. 

a real, genuine house. But it had not settled 
very far from the shore. All around it were 
wide sandy plains, with here and here a growth 
of oak and pine ; and on a windy day you could hear 
the beating of the waves mingled with the sighing 
of the pines. 

One afternoon in the early springtime, the little 
door stood open wide. What a pleasant little room 
to enter ! though, to be sure, it gives you a sort of 
“ capsized ” feeling to look up at the keel overhead, 
and see the ribs curving up to it from either side. A 
pretty, quaint, cheerful, homelike room, for all its 
rough table and chairs and lack of ornament. 

On this particular day, then, little Naomi — lame 
Naomi — and her father, were having a very earnest 
conversation. 

“Father,” cried she, “you will surely be back 
before to-morrow night. You know the moths might 
settle any night now.” 

You don’t know what that means, do you? Well, 
Naomi’s father — her mother had been dead more 
than a year — was poor, very poor ; but by great 
care and hard work he had saved enough to lay out 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG. 


a little cranberry-bog, about a mile from their house, 
right by the running brook. It costs a good deal to 
lay out a bog — to haul on the clean sand, to set the 
straight rows of vines. To watch their growth, too, 
is a matter of no small moment, for in the spring, 
just when the vines are in flower, there come swarms 
of little flies or moths, settling all over the bog, 
and laying their tiny eggs in the heart of every 
blossom ; these eggs change to worms later on, and 
spoil the berries. There is one way to cheat the little 
creatures ; for all the bogs are made beside running 
brooks, and as soon as the moths appear, the man 
who is watching, turns the course of the stream right 
into the bog, which is thus soon flooded, and the 
lirtle moths are drowned. Then the brook is allowed 
to run on in its old channel, for the berries are saved. 

Now you know what Naomi meant when she 
said the moths might come. 

“ Yes, child,” her father said, “ we could ill afford 
that loss. I shall only be away during the day ; 
never fear.” 

Early the next morning the father plodded down 
the footpath toward the river, little Naomi hobbling 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG. 


along beside him with the aid of her crutch. In a 
moment he was in the boat, paddling slowly, first on 
one side, then on the other. 

“Be sure to come home early, father,” cried Na- 
omi; and he had just time to nod and smile, when a 
bend in the river shut him out of sight. 

All day long Naomi sat by the door-way in her lit- 
tle rocking-chair — one her father had made for her 
— sewing away and singing away just as happy as if 
she had been a princess. The song was one her 
mother had taught her : 

“Away, away, where the waves are rolling, 

Where you hear the solemn bell-buoy tolling, 

Where the boat goes skimming o’er the sea 
Which shall bring him home to me, to me. 

“ Away, away, where the wind is blowing, 

Where the currents sweep and tides are flowing. 

Where the boat goes skimming o’er the sea 
Which shall bring him home to me, me.” 

To be sure, she was very lame — always had been ; 
so lame that she was obliged to sit still most of the 
time; “but then,” said she, “no one has everything, 
and I am so much better off than most folks.” 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG. 


At last it began to grow dark — just a little — so that 
Naomi could not see to sew very well, and laid her 
work by to watch the red clouds sailing by, and see 
the young leaves just rustling in the faint puffs of 
air. Then it became darker and darker, and a little 
chilly, too ; so she shut the door, and stirred up the 
embers on the hearth,, and threw on more wood, so 
that the little room fairly glowed with light, and all 
the pans on the wall flashed like diamonds. Then 
she drew out the table, and put on the pretty red 
cover and the heavy crockery, and hung the kettle 
on the crane. And the heart of the old boat must 
have rejoiced at the warmth and light, when it remem- 
bered that it would never again face the stormy sea. 

“ Why doesn’t father come?” thought Naomi, as 
the hands of the clock moved slowly round. “How 
late he is!” and she pressed her face against the 
window to try to get a glimpse of out-doors ; but it 
was as dark as pitch outside. 

“Hark!” she said suddenly; “there he comes;” 
and wide open she threw the door. The steps drew 
nearer and nearer, and in a moment two men burst 
into the light streaming out from the doorway. 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG. 



She had been so much alone that she was not 
afraid. So she called out : 


“ Where are you going 




“We’re bound for the West Bog, to let on the 

water.” 

“ H ave 
you seen 
my fath- 
er?” 

“No. He 
ought to 
be up to 
flood his 
bog ’fore 
lo n g.” 
Then they 

passed into the darkness again, and 
their steps died away. 

They were going to flood their 
bog, then; they knew there was 
danger, Naomi thought. Oh, why 
didn’t her father come ? What should she do ? 
For a moment — only a moment — she hesitated. 


WHERE GOING? 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG. 


Then she hurried to the closet and lighted the 
lantern, put on her cloak, took her crutch, and only 
waiting an instant to listen once more for her father’s 
steps, she hobbled and ran dowm the path as best 
she might. On she hurried, the crutch stumping, 
stumping over the ground. 

Oh, how dark it was ! How small and alone she 
felt in this great black night ! Once a rabbit burst 
from the bushes and scuttled across her way; time 
and again she thought she saw men crouching right 
in her path ; and once she almost fell to the ground 
when close to her ear a loud voice cried out : “ Tu 
whit , tu whit , tu whoo !” But she was a brave little 
girl, and she kept right on. But she had never 
walked so fast or so far, and soon her foot began to 
pain her at every step ; but she dreaded to stop in all 
that darkness, so on she went. Then all at once she 
came upon a little cottage with a dim light burning 
in a front window. She knocked. 

“ What is it ? ” said a woman’s voice. “ Go away, 
or I’ll set the big dog on ye, and git out the gun, 
and call my husband, and have you arrested ! Ye’d 
better leave.” 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG. 


Naomi laughed. 

“ I’m only a little girl,” she said. “ Is there a 
man here that could go up to the bogs?” 

“Be you alone, young woman? ” asked the voice ; 
and Naomi thought she saw the curtain drawn aside 
a little. 

“All alone.” 

“ Sure ? ’Cos, if you haven’t come to rob the 
house, I won’t take the trouble to wake up the three 
men and the dog that’s sleepin’ in the next room, and 
git down the gun.” And the door was opened a 
trifle. 

“ Why, you poor child ! ” cried the woman. “Well, 
well, how you did frighten me! I thought some 
robbers had come. I’m all alone. Come in.” 

So Naomi went in and sat down a moment by the 
fire ; saw the cat dozing on the hearth, and laughed 
to see the old woman jump every time a leaf rustled 
outside. At last she left her alone again, and hurried 
along the lonesome road. But suddenly she stops ; 
here right before her is a deep, broad brook, and 
in the faint light of the lantern she sees one narrow, 
slippery plank to lead across. Must she go back? 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG. 



In a moment her plan was laid. She raised her 
crutch and threw it clear over the brook ; and then, 
the lantern hanging on one finger, she knelt down on 
the narrow plank, and grasping it with both hands, 
began to crawl along. Every instant she expected 
to fall into the dark water which she could just see 
slipping slowly along below. 


BKAVE LITTLE LAME NAOMI. 

But at length the stream was crossed, and on she 
hobbled again. She is almost there now. She knows 
just where stands the gate across the brook, for her 
father has often brought her here. She sees it there 
in the darkness, where the brook boils and foams 
and rushes through. Here it is at last. While 


HOW NAOMI FLOODED THE BOG. 


she unfastens the gate, she sees a fish or two 
dart into the light of the lantern for an instant — and 
then, thud, splash fell the gate, and the water rose. 

And then she fell over on the cold, hard ground, 
and fainted away from fright and pain. 

Well, she awoke in the little room in the boat, and 
saw her father standing looking into the dancing fire. 
And she felt so warm and comfortable that she did 
not speak for a moment ; and then she said, “ Did 
it save the berries, father ? ” 

And how her father came and talked to her, how 
he praised her and blamed her, and what they did 
with the money they received for the cranberries, 
would take too long to tell. But of all the stories 
that Naomi tells to her grandchildren, the one they 
like best is that which tells how the owl hooted, and 
how she crossed the bridge and saved the bog. 





























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